Reflexive Narcolepsy

[morsla]

I do it more than I'd like to admit. I'll be sitting on a tram or train, travelling by myself, and someone will walk up and try to start talking to me. Heroin addicts trying to tell me how they're kicking the drugs; an old widow who paused to harass her dead husband - I've had all sorts. Often - most of the time, in fact, I choose the easy way out of the conversation." Look weary, lean against the window, close your eyes. Build up enough body language to stop it before it begins.

Tonight was something a little different. As the tram stopped, minutes away from aeliel and delphaeus' house, those familiar alarm bells started ringing. A man climbed the steps, thanking the driver for stopping. He walked with a stoop, had long, matted grey hair, and wore a jacket that looked to have survived all the nine hells at once... and he sat opposite me in the otherwise empty tram. My eyelids started to droop, and I slouched more comfortably in the seat. But this one wasn't having a bar of it...

He talked about travelling on the trains, and how long it took to get anywhere without a car. He was out to see old friends and older haunts, drinking in the pubs around the city, and he knew it would be late before he finally got home. His smile was jagged and missing some teeth, but his eyes were very bright. As his story went on, I noticed something else - his face was as animated as I've ever seen - overjoyed with a happy memory, irritated at the niggling bad ones that crept into his tales.

"It's nice to know that you can sleep under a bridge, if you need to. It tells you that you can survive whatever the hell they throw at you."

That one caught me - an echo of something I said in warmer, drier times. Self sufficiency isn't just for its own sake - it's a powerful tool, and possessing it is an empowering thing. As he continued to speak, he started to look less like a homeless figure, and more like someone who knew exactly where they were going.

He showed me a laptop bag that he carried, explaining that he'd bought it a year ago and shared the computer with an old friend. He didn't use half the functions on it, but he used the games to sharpen his mind, and organised things with it. He wanted to get a folder, and put maps of the city in it - it was essential that he could plan exactly where he would go, and how he would get back again. He had bought an internet connection as well, and when he had the chance he downloaded physics data, to work out the answers to questions he had thought of. He also used it to play chess with his son while he wandered.

"It's a mind game - it's really a big part of it. When he works out why I've done something, and I know he's worked it out, and he knows that I know."

Abruptly, the conversation shifted to behaviour and body language, and he held my gaze for a moment. "You wouldn't realise it, but in the last five minutes I've learned a lot more about you than you know. It's the little things that give it away, like where your eyes move after I ask a question. I'm only telling you this because it's taken me so long to figure it out myself. All I'm doing, why I do this, it's so I can understand myself. I just want to know what I'm doing."

As I sat there, considering how deftly I'd been outmanouevred, he grinned with that gap-toothed smile. "I know what I'll do. I'll get a folder, and put maps and places in it. But first, I'm going to Young & Jackson's. I'll go to take a look at Chloe, whichever bar she's in now, and I'll have a glass of red."

And with that, he stepped off the tram and disappeared into the night...

Comments

[aeliel.livejournal.com]

A moment like that changed my life once. Strange old guy staring at me on public transport while i tried to read eventually said to me "you know, you shouldn't feel so trapped, people can only manipulate you if you let them". He then spent about twenty minutes telling me about myself from what he'd observed about me just sitting, reading on a train. He told me about himself and how he got to the point he's at. I didn't say much, didn't have to. It was self altering. People on public transport can sometimes be the biggest eye openers, mind you they can also be the strangest people and should be avoided.

[peacockangel.livejournal.com]

You really can learn a lot about people from little things. I've been asked if I have telepathy because of that.

[morsla.livejournal.com]

Which city was this in? If it was in Melbourne, it's entirely possible that you saw the same person...

[aeliel.livejournal.com]

It was in Melbourne, well, sort of. It was on a train from Ballarat. He said he came from the Eastern Suburbs where he said he did a lot of work with street kids. He had a long salt and pepper beard.

O_O

[kikilon.livejournal.com]

I need to take more public transport.
Can I steal him for a character? Pleeeaaaase? Nobody writes characters like real life.
Thanks for sharing.

Re: O_O

[morsla.livejournal.com]

You're welcome. He made me think far too much to just go home and fall asleep... so I had to write things down somewhere :) If anyone else meets him, I'd be interested to find out what else he gets up to...