When I went back, the hat was gone. I got to the shop and nothing was there. I searched the entire shelf, which wasn’t very big. It couldn’t be gone, it just couldn’t be. Then I searched every shelf around - I mean every single one, but it was nowhere. I grabbed at a passer by…have you seen it? Please…I’m begging you, I have to have it, oh god please… but they shook me off and left the shop.

The numb panic I felt at first was replaced by a sort of heat that started in my stomach and passed through my heart, then up my throat. My knees were threatening to give way. How could I be so stupid? If only I had taken it when I first saw it! Or if only I had come back earlier, maybe just a few minutes, the glorious hat could be in my hands right now. Oh, why did I wait? Waiting had cost me the world. What was my life without that hat? Nothing. A voice inside my head was telling me to carry on, to hold my head up high, that this hat wasn’t worth it, that I should just be brave and battle on despite this devastating turn of events and be respected for doing so but I crushed this voice, telling it to shut right up. How could I be brave without the hat? How?! If I had it…it would look so bold on my head and people would admire it wherever I went, congratulating me on my good fortune. But no, without it, I was nothing.

I saw a shop assistant and despite my misery, I gasped…red hat? Please? I have the money; see…but I stopped when I saw her face. She looked at me with a little smile – yes! A smile! – about her lips. That little smile infuriated me. How could she smile at a time like this?! Did she not understand?! I turned from her and stumbled out the shop. It was raining. Oh! If only I had that wonderful hat, I would not be getting wet and cold. I managed to get into a taxi and the taxi driver turned and stared at me. Not used to seeing a grown man cry? I spat. He replied by holding his hand out for the money, before we had even started moving and I threw at him the eight dollars I had saved for the hat. Eight little dollars! The enormity of my loss came back to me and forced the breath from my lips in another sob. The taxi driver’s eyes flickered back and forth between the road and the mirror, through which he watched me with a curled lip.

My utter misery threatened to overwhelm me, so I rocked back and forth, in time with the tapping my fingers made against the ugly fake leather of the cab door handle and the rain on the roof. The movement was reassuring, but I couldn’t forget the hat. Its image haunted my vision. Have you ever experienced a time were you just haven’t wanted to go on living? Yes, this was one of those times.

Out of the taxi now, I stumbled towards my building. I looked at my face in the glass of the door. My eyes were drawn to my empty head - my bald pate was mocking me. My tears had carved white lines down my filthy face, which I actually decided made me look pleasingly alternative. I took strength from this. Just a hat, I thought. Albeit a beautiful hat, but just a hat. I said this aloud, and the words felt like blasphemy, but I drew my self up high. I supposed people had suffered worst losses than this and managed to carry on. So would I.