Diet Coke and Cigarettes

There is a man in my building.
When I wake up and stare out my window I look down into the building’s slanted driveway and he is there.
7:00am in the morning and he is there. Diet Coke on the wood pylon next to him, cigarette in his hand, legs crossed - usually he’s on the phone.

When I go to bed I brush my teeth and stare out the window.
He is there.
11:00pm at night and he is there. Diet Coke on the wood pylon next to him, cigarette in hand, legs crossed - he’s hung up the phone by now.

He is probably younger than he looks. The years of smoke wrinkling his face.

I judge him, sometimes jealously, from the 5th floor where I reside.
I think about how he has thicker hair than me. I think about how he talks on the phone all day — I don’t know to whom but when I am in a good mood I say it is a lot of work calls…a bad mood I assume he is talking with his friends…doing what I wish I was doing.

He seems so comfortable doing this every day. Multiple times a day.
“I could never,” I tell myself.
Then I realize that I could. I am in a way. I see him everyday doing it. As I drink a water in the morning and brush my teeth at night I am doing my own little ritual.
I am the same.

I hate the realization I am even an ounce of stagnant.

I wonder why he chooses Diet Coke and cigarettes. What do you think got him hooked? Why does his life, the one I observe a few times a day from 5 floors up, seem so easy? He seems so content with his routine. I envy him. I hate him a little.

I am obviously caught in a mood today.
Maybe I will talk to him when I walk by on my way to the gym. Maybe he stands outside everyday because he wants someone to talk to him in real life. Maybe he does what he does because he wants someone to ask — a burning desire to make some kind of connection so he throws himself outside every day, multiple times a day, wishing for some connection.

I do the same. A coffee shop to do work surrounded by strangers daydreaming about an interaction. Walking to the gym instead of driving so I can peer into the shops as I go by and make eye contact with the people inside. Choosing the apartment on the outside corner of the building so I can see people at all times. Connecting only with sight.

I sometimes see the man outside share a cigarette with another man in the building. This man is old, missing a leg — I wonder if he is a veteran, maybe (more likely) a diabetic. Are they friends? Maybe he doesn’t need my friendship after all.

Does he think things about me when he sees me every day? Does he envy me? Does he pity me?