Some Tomato Bisque

The rain was steady, not too heavy thankfully, but he was still soaked. Head down, he kept walking regardless, thinking tangled thoughts that he had no possibility of ever untangling. Such was his state of mind.

Rounding the corner he recognized a diner up the street. “Mac’s Diner” proudly proclaiming the owner’s name. As he entered, the waitress sized him up and waved him to a table near the heater. He hadn’t realized until then that he was cold. Removing his coat, he draped it over the chair by the heater.

The waitress came over with a mug of hot coffee, he hadn’t even asked for yet. “Looked like you could use this” she said setting it down. Saying “Thank you” rather flatly he added some creamer and started to sip the hot liquid. “What a horrible day” he thought to himself, looking over the menu. Thinking back he smiled slightly, reliving the big lugy he had managed to spit onto the Merrill Lynch bull statue as he passed by the building. “Fuckers” he muttered under his breath. “Too big to fail my ass” He envisioned throwing a gallon of red paint on their precious “bull”

The waitress had returned so he ordered some tomato bisque with a grilled cheese sandwich.

He was ruined, he decided. “Those fuckers where skating and he was one of the thousands who had been blown to shit by their misdeeds” he thought for the hundredth time. Today’s news had sealed it for him when he had read that they had all still taken bonuses. “ What the fuck” “How is that even possible” he thought, trying to wrap his head around this final bit of “Fucked in the ass news”

His soup and sandwich had come so he thanked her again and hoped this food would lift his spirit’s some. For a few minutes he was content, the food warmed his insides and allowed him to forget briefly, his dire circumstances. Soon though it returned, the darkness descending on him like a blanket. Covering him with dread instead of warmth. “This is how it happens” he thought. He had already read how some people had ended their lives, destroyed like so many by the “To big to fail consortium of cronie capitalist cocksuckers”. He liked that one, smiling a twisted smile of imaginary revenge.

He put his last two twenties on the table and rising put on his still damp coat. Without a look back he exited the diner and started walking, the Manhattan bridge soon looming in his vision. “How many times had he crossed this bridge?” he thought. “Thousands at the least”. He stopped in the middle of the bridge, looking out over the water. Glancing at the city skyline. He started to shiver a little, his body heat not keeping up with the cold rain and soaked clothes. The traffic continued unabated behind him, oblivious to his predicament. Still shivering he almost started to cry, then instead he shouted, a primal scream really. Yelling “Fuck you” to the buildings of the city. Silence returned, the city sounds continued in their normalcy, unaware of his tantrum. Life continuing. Breathing hard from his outburst, he turned, flipping the “finger” to the city and continued on his way.

He realized later, looking back at things, just how close he had been, the raw trauma of the current events had hit him hard. Too hard. Others had succumbed to the hopeless feelings. He tried to find what it was that had saved him, he knew without a doubt that any little nudge would have done him in. Somehow he had survived, perhaps some divine intervention had accured. “ George Bailey’s wingless angel on the Manhattan bridge” he chuckled. It might also had been his anger, he was just so mad with the righteous indignation of it all that he had pushed down his desperation. Whatever it was, it had worked, he was still alive and breathing, “Maybe it was the tomato bisque” he smiled genuinely and flipped a quarter into the fountain.

By some reports as many as 10,000 suicides can be linked back to the financial crisis of 2008.