Three men in the park.

This is a copy of the "moment" that I did. I've forgotten it over and over again, but now that it's 1AM just before the last day it could possibly be put up, somehow I've remembered! Anyway, it is pretty minimalist, but try to picture it rather than thinking about if it has meaning or if it is a clever dialogue, because you won't find much there. It represents something I like about the park. That's all, really.

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In Washington Square Park’s Northeast plaza, an aged black man with long, grey hair sits perched on a free-standing wall, holding a guitar. Whether what the man is doing can really be called playing or not is debatable. He is fingering the chords and strumming, but so slowly and so lightly that the sound is barely perceptible and any semblance of a song is lost. It seems that it might pain his fingers to play any faster. The man is not alone. On the picnic table opposite him and only a couple of feet away, a younger, darker man sits, starkly upright in all black clothing and a black hat. Next to him sits a similarly dressed young Asian man, of the artsy New York chic camp of fashion. Accounting for position only, at least two of them seem to be together, but they will give no signs to confirm.

The man (1) with the guitar mutters incomprehensibly, offering also an occasional grunt.

The man with the hat (2) opens his mouth from time to time and looks like he’s about to say something, but remains otherwise quite still, with eyes half open, staring straight ahead.

The young Asian man (3) faces away from the man with the hat at an angle of about 90 degrees. He shifts in his seat multiple times and looks uncomfortable.

Man 3 (to Man 2): “Do you have a light?”

Man 2, without turning around or moving his head at all in any direction, reaches into his pocket, pulls out a small plastic butane lighter, and hands it to Man 3 over his left shoulder.

Man 3: “Thanks. I feel like I’m wasting my day.”

Man 3 lights a cigarette and hands the lighter back to Man 2.

Man 2: “Yeah.”

Man 3 (to Man 1): “What can you play?”

Man 1: “…”

Man 2: “I’ve never really heard him play much, just a few chords. I kind of feel like I’m wasting my day, too.”

Man 3: “I should have gone back to work a while ago.”

Man 2: “It is nice out, even if it isn’t sunny.”

Man 3: “I really need to stop taking such long lunch breaks. Do you have anywhere to be?”

Man 2: “Every year you think it’s going to be spring by now and it never is. Isn’t it funny how you always think that, and it never is?”

Man 3: “If I go back to work, though, I’m not going to get anything done. I may as well just stay out and tell everyone I felt sick. If I go back now, I’ll just get heckled for having been out.”

Man 2: “I heard it’s supposed to be nice later in the week at least.”

Man 3: “Either way, I guess I should go. I’m wasting my day.”

Man 2: “Me too.”

Man 3 (to Man 1): “Seeya later.”

Man 2 (to Man 1): “Take care.”

Man 1 continues to mutter and strum extremely slowly. The other two men get up and walk away, in the same direction, but a few feet apart.

The relationship between the three men remains completely ambiguous, as is the case with most apparent relationships between people sitting together at these picnic tables on any day of the year. The man continues to sit there with his guitar. He isn’t doing much, but he looks like he’ll be there for a while.