“Hey!”, I said as I tilted my head upwards at the man looking down at me. After bringing myself to his attention I waited for a response, but surprisingly nothing was said immediately. At first I thought “I’ll give him some time, maybe he’s currently lost in his own thoughts”, but as I continued to attempt to talk to him, he payed no mind to my constant efforts.

There were so many things I wanted to ask him, his situation was extremely confusing to me. Why would he be hanging off the side of this building, is he suicidal? From the looks of it, he’s been observing the street below for quite a bit, is he spying on someone or something?

After questioning him in my head for about a minute I finally built up the nerve to get his attention in some other way. In the corner of my eye I spotted a half crushed soda can, which I could throw near him to finally get him to respond. In one swift move I flung the can with all my might to the window right below where he sat. A slight flinch is all I got from him as he continued to ignore me, even though he clearly knows I’m here.

At this point I grew angry at him, I narrowed down my theories to three possibilities. He was either deaf, some sort of addict or he’s getting exactly what he wants from me, a reaction. Just then, a small but sudden buildup of chatter grew from behind me. I turned around and I saw a group of people, some with cameras and others with notepads. I could only make out a few of their phrases and sentences because they were all talking over each other.

Some people were gushing over the man’s “endless amount of talent” and how he “is changing how they view the world”. I found this harsh cacophony of “oohs and aahs” even more annoying than it should be, coming from my already existing aggression towards the hanger above. After I took notice to the group, I heard one of them say “Wow, the other man is looking at us, it really makes me feel like I’m apart of this story”.

His words confused me even more and pushed me further into my horrible mood. Just when I least expected, a women ran up next to me from around a corner and also looked up at the man. “Wait!”, she exclaimed in a horrified tone, “You don’t have to do this, you have so much to li-“.

She turned over to me and shockingly whispered “Wait a second, who are you, aren’t you supposed to be back there?”, as she pointed to the crowd of people. Finally, the man above spoke up as well “I suggest you leave right now because you are ruining all of this!”

“Oh, I’m ruining this?!” I remarked in a snarky tone, “Well you’re the one who wouldn’t answer me for the past ten minutes!” After I yelled, someone from the crowd uttered “There’s some fourth wall breaking in this piece, truly groundbreaking material if you ask me”. The sound of the crowd’s claps finally caused my brain to put two and two together.

I looked back at the man hanging from the building and the dramatically scared women below and I finally realized their motives, they were performance artists and I just ruined their installation. All I could think as I finally walked away was how I wasted so much time out of my day. I sighed even louder when the pretentious art critics started applauding me because they thought I was a performer too.

“God damnit”.