It is dusk and the crowds they usher along past the paper man. A present stature, subtle and ambient in silhouette, but do they see him? The paper man exhausts in intervals, leaving a curtain of fading smoke to swirl around the next passerby. He gazes miles into his thoughts somewhere between the cracks in the pavement, never batting an eye; only his arm raises to inhale like a neon sign, animated to advertise and to lure your eye, but no one sees the paper man. The paper man. The paper man who sees in black and white recalls a time when he knew what to feel and even wanted to but just didn't know how. His memories they aged cemented in sepia between the annals of wants and wishes and those of experiences, all colored but one in the same. He had heard of a god and its love but never seemed to have felt it. He met the devil who when offered his soul had politely declined. The paper man didn't feel real and maybe he wasn't. He smiles just like you and frowns all the same. He probably even has a name.

The cigarette rapidly cools as it is pressed into the wall. If he leaves now, he should make it by dawn.

The choir laments.

It is dawn and the paper man stands before the shoreline. No more seen now by nobody than he was around everyone. The paper man walks into the sea. Each wave returning from the shoreline walking him further into the deep. As the sun rises he looks down at his hands just below the surface of the water. His distorted figure more so as his hands spread, loosening and coming undone at each fold. Now he knows. His legs soften and buckle and he starts to sink, floating here or there at the mercy of the ocean's random push and pull. His face submerges and flutters along with the random bits of current. As he sinks he looks toward the surface. His eyes widen. One more memory. He gently files this one, a perfect blue, safely between the others.

The choir mourns and observes as the paper man comes unraveled evermore.