There was a man, I'd run into him odd times. No spectacular distinction except out of thousands crossing my path, he in some way stood apart. Perhaps the randomness of finding myself in his space in different and unrelated locations each time? The way he casually entered my space, no visible intent, only ever sustained eye contact between us. He walking by with dog in tow... Strolling along the pier.... Speaking on the phone outside the bank... In a pizza place, my sons picking up the order as I waited parked outside... At an outdoor café, some distance from home... For three years these chance meetings piqued my interest.
"Speak to him already," my son said one day, seeing me freeze again, my eyes glued to the stranger's face.
"Nuh. It's nothing."
"It's something, if you keep doing it mum."
I'd spotted him with a woman once or twice. The sort I imagined him having: Blonde, slender, fashion-conscious. I assumed him married - despite never witnessing any physical contact between them - this fact however never hindering my quiet moments of imagining. He fit the pattern.
Yet I never followed through. Only my eyes examining, searching for why the attraction? Why he, in a sea of middle-aged possibilities - most far easier to approach, far less consuming. I wrote about him. An interest; something to make the bland days a little more palatable. The chance we'd cross paths again, when least expected. It's what I wanted really, my son too young to understand. The idea of connecting, baring my flesh, his hands exploring... Terrible. Finding no meaning to take away from him and dissect afterwards? Worse.
Still, I clung to the fear. The possibility he could be another. It worried me, the conviction he would take from me, or I'd gush, explode in my urgency to define. Overwhelm him with need. No way for him to reciprocate, I'd push him away, he wandering off in search of something less complicated.
The fact he further brought William to my mind during those random meets? Maybe this was the real reason I kept away.The disturbing idea William was two places at once, taking over other bodies, intruding on my living.
"There's a man with a dog. Sometimes I see him and seeing myself, I turn away letting it be. If I sit here on the pier long enough, dangling feet over the worn woody edge, he will come and if I look he will look back, seeing himself in me. Long ago on an aeroplane, later a train, a crowded street, I caught brief glimpses of other 'he may be you' versions.This one persists however making the merely ethereal appear like real. He brings you to me every chance meet. It is for this I turn away, the odd connection defying an explanation other than you're two places at once, morphing into strangers smirking, entering my field of living. Even on the bloody pier minding my own business you appear; the stranger mutely asking for permission to approach never knowing you've invaded him."
This not the only instance either. Another time, driving past the shopping centre, almost causing an accident because I swore I saw William. The frantic search for a parking spot, eyes glued to his retreating back. Everything inside me screaming it was him. It was him! Rushing from the illegally parked car and walking up and down the main street searching, searching. Not finding him.
The irony! Discovering during our last brief meeting that he'd in fact been down to our coast, looking at a development. The idea - no the certainty- that it could well have been him!
The irrationality also. A phone call, a plane ride away. Yet relying on fate to instigate a meeting? I may be a coward after all, despite the heroic gestures and selfless proclamations, despite the sacrifices. In the end, all that may remain is acknowledging my cowardice.
Was this the real, the only theft by the man-devils? Has it always been a way to compensate, deceive the world? Where is my bloody heart? Where is the simple trust, devoid of prior contemplation and planning? The innate affection too, the touch of a hand, kiss on lips without dissembling, role-playing?
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Non-FictionThis is my memoir. As such, I am letting you in on the most intimate parts of me. No glib opinion piece or a well-thought-out theory, this. It's me. I come with a warning. No child under eighteen should read any part of my story. It is raw. It is u...
