Lunchtime means the tie comes off.
It's a Nice Day Out and nothing's better for you than a walk in the park, so a lunch date is canceled. I hope against hard feelings and cross against lights.
I wander down by the river. It isn't a real river, but the trees are. I shiver and watch the lights on the trees blink, then shine full force on a winter's evening. I'm striding through July humidity.
Several executives stand on the bridge I am under. No doubt they and their children own stereo, video, and game equipment that totals more than I am worth, but at lunchtime entertainment costs only the price of dropping a small piece of bread into the water and watching the fish lunge and nibble. Someone mentions pirrhana.
I sit in the grass along the water's edge. The clothes I wear somehow earn a small bit of respect and separate me from the homeless man a hundred feet away or the slacker kid walking on the other side. Suddenly I don't want them anymore.
I stare into the water, watching the building's reflection, waiting to see a red cord's slow descent from an upper story window.