[ WP ] Everyday for the past week the same man goes in the middle of Time 's Square and kills himself .

Everyday he sits there, on a little scrap of cardboard next to a trash can. A small cup by his feet, it's filled with coins and it jingles when he lifts it, yet the contents would n't amount to enough to buy a meal in the McDonalds across the street. Wearing the same ragged clothes he wears each day, a tattered Jacket, a hat so old that it no longer keeps off the rain, nor shades from the sun, and shoes... well... on a wet day he might be brave enough to wear, and to wear out, his shoes. He has n't spoken to more than three people this week, it's now Thursday. 
 
 It kills him to sit there, alone and dejected. When people talk about dying, they never meant it like this. `` What if...'' the words that constantly went through his head, `` what if it had never happened? What if I could take it all back?... What if I had a better education? What if I could find a job? What if I had just a little more money? What if she was still here? What if... What if...'' 
 
 And yet here he was, sitting alone. Head down, staring at the concrete, destroying himself in his thoughts. He's not the same man who passed through these streets a few years ago, he died a long time ago. It's true he looked the same, he was the same height, he had the same eyes, same face. His hair was a longer now, he'd grown a beard, and his clothes no longer fit. But that man was dead, he had a family, a wife and kids, he had a job, a house. 
 
 He's not the man who sat here a year ago, he may not have had a family any more, nor a house. But he had hope, optimism, he still had some money on him. But he was dead now too. 
 He was n't the man who sat there last week, he was gone. Same face, same eyes, same clothes, but he was dead now also. 
 And he was n't the man who sat there yesterday, he was gone too. 
 
 By now he was n't even the same man who had sat down 14 hours ago. Slowly but surely as the world passed him by, indifferent, a little piece of him had died. The past was a vague memory, blurred, and painful to dwell on. And yet tomorrow he would return to his little piece of Times Square, cup in hand, and sit down on the same patch of concrete, on the same scrap of cardboard, across the street from that same McDonalds. Knowing that it was slowly killing him, each day would take a piece from him. Each evening he was a different person, but always less than the one before. But what alternative was there? By now he would n't know where to start even if he tried. The old him might have, four years ago. But he was dead now, as was the man last week, and the one yesterday. Each day he would come, and sit, and die. 
 
 Slowly he stood up, emptied the cup into his hand, briefly sorted the coins, and crossed the road and into McDonalds. 

