He looked like a fish out of water -- clearly uncomfortable in this setting. And so this would beg the question: what was he doing here? I watched through my room window as the man, obviously from the countryside, stumbled through the metropolitan streets. He was looking for something, and I had a good feeling that it was actually someone. As I looked closer, I recognized a glint that told me all I needed to know. It was a glint of regret. A grayness that reflected deep loss and tragedy. What had happened to this man? He had lost someone he loved. Were they dead, perhaps? Not likely. The way the man spun around the streets and looked north and south and east and west as if who he was looking for would suddenly pop up in front of him. The man walked closer to the building where I resided, and I saw something more. He was a man that cherished the past, and apparently that was the only part of him that kept him alive. The desire to find his lost someone was so strong that I could’ve sworn that I saw waves radiating from him. His sad eyes appeared to beckon passersby to help him find who he’d lost. It was enough to make anyone drop what they were doing and help him immediately. But he did no such thing. He wanted to complete his quest alone. 

He was a curious man -- I could not quite put my finger on why. I left my room on the fourth floor and traveled down to street level to get a better look. The man had deep eyebags, suggesting the lack of sleep he’d endured. It could’ve been from countless nights of restlessness -- focused on finding his lost...child! It must be, for this man’s presence spoke of another tragedy: losing his spouse. His wife had died, I would say, a hefty amount of time ago. More questions arose in me. Had his child run off? Had his child gone to school out of state and never returned? Perhaps the man had done something to lose his child. And then it came to me! An alcoholic.He must’ve been. As the man got closer to my building, I noticed a small pin that he toyed with in his nervous hands -- a sobriety pin. I must admit that I was proud of the man. I had learned the hard way about alcoholism’s dangerous consequences. 

I peered deeper into the man’s soul. Why had he come now to find his child? Had something happened? Had something changed? It was entirely possible that the man had just recently discovered where his child was. The man turned onto another street, and I followed him from the other side of the road. His sullen face contrasted with a small flicker of hope told me more. They had good memories, he and his child. Perhaps even a great relationship at one point. Had the mother’s passing changed things? Or dare I say, changed one of them? The man may have fallen victim to alcohol’s temptations soon after his wife’s death, and subsequently destroyed his relationship with his son. Yes, that was it. I was sure of it. And now he was attempting to fix what was left of their broken relationship. He turned left this time, and I quickly crossed the street to continue observing him from afar. The man intrigued me deeply, yet I could not say for sure why he did. 

Shuffling. He was reluctant, and I grew even more captivated. He had come from afar, to a place he was unfamiliar with, to find his child, and yet he showed apprehension. The child would not forgive him for his debts, I assumed. Broken promises have plagued not just my life or the man’s life, but everyone’s lives. But this broken promise had to be vital. A promise to stop drinking, for example? A promise to get better. I was reminded of the time when I looked at my watch. Although the man fascinated me very much so, money from my job attracted me just a bit more. And so I went to work, but the man stayed on my mind. At some point during the day, I forgot about the man. I forgot the bad things in life, and focused solely on what was in front of me. I left my office when the clock struck five, and I went to a cozy diner nearby when I found myself facing fate. The man passed through the diner window as I waited for my food, and I rushed out to follow him once again. It had been hours, but still the man searched. How could a man so set on finding his child still show signs of reluctance? I envisioned the man telling his child that he was going to stop. To stop drinking. The child must’ve thought him a liar by now, but still held out hope that perhaps today was the day that his father would stop his life-destroying habit. The child’s hopes, however small they were, were shattered once again when he watched as a cab dropped off his blindly drunk father back home at midnight. The man turned off of Main Street, and I made sure to keep my distance as I trailed him. Perhaps it was not that he had not found his son yet, but that he did not want to find his son yet. 

It was scarcely six o’clock, but the winter skies had already darkened. It wasn’t safe for me or the man to be out this late at night, but I kept with him in case something happened. I had grown an unexpected attachment to the man, and part of me was even cheering for him to find his child. Why was I not wholeheartedly rooting him on? Well there are always two sides to a story. While the man may have told me everything from his point of view, things may be drastically different from his child’s perspective. It was entirely possible that not only did this man drink to excess, but he also frequently beat his child. Although I admit that it was possible, I did not sense such things from a sad and persistent old man. Nevertheless, there were other things I considered as I continued along the path that the man paved for me. I noticed that he began looking for the numbers on the buildings that he walked beside, and I froze suddenly. A scene bursted in my mind, and I pictured a young boy watching his father get angry and fly out of the house, no doubt headed for the bar yet again. The young boy waited for hours and hours for his father to return home, but no dice. It was already past midnight, when the young boy awoke from his sleep on the couch to the jiggling of the side door. Considering how drunk his father was, it was no surprise that he’d accidentally enter from the side door. But it was not his father, and it was no one he recognized. The boy hid in the closet and watched as a dreadful thief plucked every penny from their house that he could find. The vile swindler had pocketed all the money that the boy, not his father, had earned from working countless hours in the fields. And it was from that moment that the boy decided that he would live his life without his father -- this man that I was following. 

How did I know so much? -- you may ask. Well. Because I am that boy.