Confidence

A man modestly strides down a crowded street. Though he is tall, there is no imposing or even threatening quality about him. He is thin and tired, like a pet looking for the food its master did not leave out. His hair falls from the top of his head as if trying to escape his body. The suit he wears is clean but has some unsightly nature to it, as if it weren’t meant for him.

Carrying himself along weakly the man is brushed aside by another.

         It is a well built man, with a slightly stocky body. The stocky man’s hair is gelled into a fixed position and his suit is crisp. In his left hand a cell phone is planted firmly to his ear, and in his right is a coffee, recently stirred by the conflict between the two. His face has a muscular quality to it that implies strength. He reeks of cologne.
         
There eyes meet for only a second.
         
         But in this second a whole world of understanding is reached. The thin man is pushed aside. He does not recoil quickly from the push, but seems to fall slowly, as if he doesn’t understand how it happened. Stumbling forward, he tries to regain what composure he had.

Yet instead of moving on he stops.

         He turns and stares as the stocky man moves on, as if trying to tell him something with his thoughts. Unfazed and finished with they’re encounter the stocky man continues his stride, never so much as looking back.  The thin man continues to stare.

Standing still in a moving crowd has its repercussions.

         The tall man sways trying to maintain where he is, desperately trying to gather himself. He moves in one direction, then another, caught in a whirlpool of people who don’t know he’s there. He is pushed against the current into the street.

Dirty street water below him he desperately stumbles  His lanky legs fail him and he falls. Hitting the ground hard he is immersed in water.
         
         He lays stunned, embarrassed and defeated. He wonders how he got here, and why he fell, yet finds no answers. The tall man strains to get up, now wet and dirty. Hunching over he tries to clean his face.

The people in the street snicker or take no notice. He is not helped and left alone.

         The tall man removes his suit jacket. His clothes now dirty and wet, seem to fit him. Hair wet a doggish he pulls it from his face. It rests gently on his head dripping with filthy water.

         Pulling himself up the man stands tall and still. He looks into the moving crowd. No one stops, he only receives glances. The man sighs and looks forward. With a swift movement of confidence he sweeps his coat over his shoulder. He continues walking on, this time on the edge of the road, alone.