There is a guy on the corner. He never does anything, but he always stands around. Smoking a cigarette, looking at people. Shuffling in his big, blue jacket. In the beginning, I wondered what he was doing there. But at some point, I just got past it. The guy became as much a part of the street as the buildings, the street signs and the kiosk in front of which he hangs out. I have to pass him in order to get to the building were we live, and he never says anything to me, and I never look at him. He's just there. He never does anything, and I hate him.
   At first, I reasoned that I disliked him because he was weird, a creep, and because of all the unanswered questions surrounding him, fencing him in. Like "Why don't you have somewhere better to be?" or "Is this really what you feel like doing?" Things like that. Things I could imagine he would not be too happy to answer.
   But there are many people you could ask unwanted questions, and this reason soon became void - untrue. This guy, not too old, no too young, he was completely harmless. It was in his eyes on the rare occasion when I would sneak a peak at this object of my frustration. A sense of... I don't know. Naivety. Looking a little lost. Not desperate, not on the edge, just uncomfortable. He looked like a man waiting for somebody, you can always tell when somebody are waiting, and you never feel any kind of fear for these people. They have places to go, things to do more important than harassing you or stealing your purse or giving you looks. And so this guy was, and the time came when thinking of him as "a creep" just sounded pathetic - hollow, an excuse.
   So I made a new one up. This is simpler to do than you would think before trying. Most people do it without conscious thought, which is why they never realise the lie they shroud themselves in. In any case, I started thinking of the man as a criminal. His boss had probably ordered him to be there. Maybe he was watching somebody. Like the lady in red who lives on the same storey as me, though in the building across the road. I saw her sometimes at night, getting dressed or undressed or whatever. She seemed to be parading herself around, and it was hard to believe she didn't realise the show she was putting on. Why, for instance, would she always wear red? Different types of clothing, different shades of colour, but always with the red. Nobody would say it didn't suit her, but that made it worse, in my opinion anyway. I don't like people like that. The way she did things deliberately, but with an air of casual indifference could make me sick.
   Maybe it was because you looked at her, too.
   But the guy on the corner. He never even glanced up in her direction. And it was a weird place to stand, anyway, if it was really her he was watching. It had made sense to me, in the beginning, but sense slipped away gradually, and one day I found myself openly staring at this guy, pausing on the sidewalk just to search my brain for at reason as to why, why I wanted to scream my guts out at him, to grab that overly big jacket of his and shake him till my arms went stiff and numb from exhaustion. Later, in bed with you by my side, I wondered just what I would have yelled. Why was the immediate answer. Why do you just stand there? Why don't you ever do something? Why don't you move on? What are you waiting for? Haven't you been waiting enough?
   The words came close to leaving my mouth then, and I suddenly felt like I was suffocating. I slipped out of bed and tip tapped across the cold floor to look out the window. It must have been 1.30, but there he was, sitting on the pavement, leaning against the wall. For some odd reason, right at that moment, he lifted his head and looked straight at me, I swear, even though the darkness made it hard to be sure. The urge to open the window and shout like I wanted to became overwhelming. Why? Why the hell can't you see nobody is coming? What are you clinging to?
   I got back into bed without ever making a sound. You didn't move at all, and I lay awake for a long time staring at your back.
   The next day, I talked to the lady in red for the very first time.
   I had just stepped out of the door when a shrill shriek cut through the air. Turning, I saw the mysterious lady sitting on the sidewalk with her ankle between her slender hands and a twisted look of pain on her beautiful face.
   My thoughts don't have much control over my actions. I rushed over to her and kneeled by her side. "Are you alright?"
   "Oh, I just..." And then her facial features twisted again, and suddenly she was laughing like she would never stop again. "He's gone," she said.
   My stomach flipped. "E-excuse me -"
   "The man. The guy. Corner-dude. He's gone."
   I whipped my head around to see that, yes, it was true. No misplaced man with a blue jacket two times his size. It was as if somebody had taken a large chunk of the scenery and just waltzed off with it.
   "I never thought he would," said the woman, in a red dress today, from far away. "I always figured..."
   Suddenly there were tears in her voice, even though they were not in her eyes. "Christ, this damn ankle," she hissed out, voice clogged. "I was just so surprised, you know? When he wasn't there. I completely forgot to look where I was going, see where that landed me..."
   "Here, let me help you," I offered. Sensations I couldn't place rushed through me. I was supposed to go to the grocery store, but I felt much more like helping this woman. I liked her much more now anyway. She tried to brush me off, and I think she wanted to be alone, but I wouldn't let her. In the end, she relented, and at the door to her apartment she offered me a cup of tea, which I accepted.
   "Aren't you supposed to be somewhere?" she asked from the kitchen a few minutes later, peering over the counter at me.
   "No," I lied easily - easily, perhaps, because it was also the truth, though I only realised it just then. "I wasn't going anywhere."
   "Oh, okay."
   She placed a steaming cup in front of me shortly after and took a seat across from me, leaning her elbows on the polished surface. I was staring out her window at the windows to my own apartment. It was a weird sensation.
   The woman followed my gaze. "Ah," she said, "that's where you live, isn't it?"
   I nodded.
   "Hmm," she hummed softly over her cup, "you and your husband."
   She stole a quick glance at me then, and I had a notion at what she was going to say next. "He looks a lot, you know," she told me.
   I knew what she was talking about, and I wasn't surprised. As I mentioned, I'd noticed too. "Isn't that what you want?" I asked evenly.
   She seemed momentarily stunned by this comment. Her azure eyes widened a bit and she clenched the green cup between her hands. "Well," she managed, pulling herself together, "I imagine it's not what you want."
   "I don't really care anymore," I said absentmindedly, taking my first sip of the tea. It was bitter, but felt calming going down my throat. "I'm leaving him," I told her.
   "Oh - that's - I'm so sorry."
   "Don't be. It's a good thing. It's about time."
   "It is?"
   I nodded, and after that neither of us spoke for a while. Then after the minutes had dragged by, the woman across the table from me let out a small laugh. "This is a day for leaving, I suppose," she said. "First that guy on the corner, and then you. You've been here longer than I remember."
   "Yes... that guy," I pondered out loud, staring thoughtfully at the place he had used to hang around, the now empty spot in front of the bright kiosk. "I wonder what made him leave."
   "Maybe he got the hang of it," said the lady in red, mostly to herself. Her words surprised me.
   "Excuse me?"
   She quickly laughed it off. "Oh, sorry - I just had this theory about him. I figured he didn't know how to - but it's all very silly, really..."
   "Please, tell me."
   "Well." She put down the mug but kept her eyes trained on the steam rising from it, and her fingers played with the handle. "He reminded me of somebody who didn't know what to do with himself, how to be a normal human being. Like that jacket. It was a nice jacket, but so big on him. And those shoes - you could tell they had been expensive, but they had obviously been through a lot and didn't look very comfortable. I always thought... he had someday woken up and realised he didn't have a clue what to do with himself. So he chose a corner, and spent his time observing people, their habits, way of walking, their clothes... hoping that someday, he would figure out what he was supposed to do, and how. I just..." She shrugged, suddenly a little helpless. "As I said, silly. We human gets silly thoughts from time to time, don't we?"
   "We do," I said. And that was all I said. I finished my tea and said goodbye, leaving without ever getting her name.
   And then I come back over here. I see you, and I hear you asking where the groceries are, where I have been. I tell you I'm leaving, and you want and explanation. Well, this is it. Or maybe it's just a story. But I'm leaving you, and that's the end of it. I'll be gone, and you can do what you want.
   Why? Because I'm moving on. Because at some point, the lies you spin for yourself unravels, and you have to make a choice. I won't be lost in my own life anymore. I could have waited an eternity, and you would never have come to me, never have looked at me like I wanted you to. So this is goodbye. Because I'm done being the guy on the corner, and I'm done waiting for your love to wake back up. And it took a man in blue and a woman in red to make me realise this.