He ate alone. He said that he preferred it that way. He said it gave him time to think. He took hisself away from the crowd and was quiet and looked inside hisself.
‘Course I knowed he didn’t really want to be alone. Nobody does, not deep down. That’s not the way we is made. At first I snuck up on him and just stood near enough I could hear him muttering to hisself. Near enough he wouldn’t notice me right away and I could tune in to what he was thinking. He said stuff about things going wrong at work and the bus being late and how his sandwich was a little drier today.
You see, he talked his thoughts out loud, just whatever was in his head. He had conversations with hisself, talking hisself down from ledges, or back into good humour, or into courageously asking for this or for that. That’s how I knowed he didn’t really want to be alone. He wanted to be courageous.
He was a bit of a kook, if you want to know the truth. But then we’re all a bit odd really and all a bit damaged underneath. I read something once about how there ain’t no one at all that you couldn’t learn to love if you knowed their story. I liked that. I tore the lines out of a magazine that wasn’t mine and I kept reading it in quiet moments. I dropped it into discussions some mornings over coffee, just to see how it went down. People usually nodded and thought it made some sort of sense, but they didn’t let it change their lives.
His name was Colt and he looked kinda beaten about the edges and, like I said, he seemed to prefer being on his own, but I wanted to know his story. I figured that he might be interesting underneath all that loneliness and if only I reached out to him then just maybe it could be different.
At first he gave me nothing. I said him hi and I said how the sun was pleasing warm today and didn’t he think so. He didn’t even stop chewing. He just kept on with his dry sandwich and he looked straight ahead like he hadn’t even heard me. I seen horses that stubborn before and I knowed they could be won and it was a trust thing and what with him being called Colt I thought he might be just like a horse and a little scared of me.
I kept talking, keeping my voice even and light, telling him stuff. It was obvious things at first, like how the birds fluttered in the dirt when there was no water and that they was doing this to clean theyselves of parasites; and how the movement of my green dress when I walked created a draft that cooled; and how the air above the baking tar of the road shimmered like it was water and the whole world looked like it was just dissolving.
I wasn’t looking for anything from him, not on that first day. But I figured if I made myself company for him then just maybe he’d be different in time. He laughed. He found it funny what I’d said about the world dissolving. I didn’t exactly know what was funny about it, but it was a start. I laughed, too, and I thought then that he weren’t so lonely no more and I knowed we could do better in the days ahead, I just knowed it.
He ate alone. He said that he preferred it that way. He said it gave him time to think. He took hisself away from the crowd and was quiet and looked inside hisself.
‘Course I knowed he didn’t really want to be alone. Nobody does, not deep down. That’s not the way we is made. At first I snuck up on him and just stood near enough I could hear him muttering to hisself. Near enough he wouldn’t notice me right away and I could tune in to what he was thinking. He said stuff about things going wrong at work and the bus being late and how his sandwich was a little drier today.
You see, he talked his thoughts out loud, just whatever was in his head. He had conversations with hisself, talking hisself down from ledges, or back into good humour, or into courageously asking for this or for that. That’s how I knowed he didn’t really want to be alone. He wanted to be courageous.
He was a bit of a kook, if you want to know the truth. But then we’re all a bit odd really and all a bit damaged underneath. I read something once about how there ain’t no one at all that you couldn’t learn to love if you knowed their story. I liked that. I tore the lines out of a magazine that wasn’t mine and I kept reading it in quiet moments. I dropped it into discussions some mornings over coffee, just to see how it went down. People usually nodded and thought it made some sort of sense, but they didn’t let it change their lives.
His name was Colt and he looked kinda beaten about the edges and, like I said, he seemed to prefer being on his own, but I wanted to know his story. I figured that he might be interesting underneath all that loneliness and if only I reached out to him then just maybe it could be different.
At first he gave me nothing. I said him hi and I said how the sun was pleasing warm today and didn’t he think so. He didn’t even stop chewing. He just kept on with his dry sandwich and he looked straight ahead like he hadn’t even heard me. I seen horses that stubborn before and I knowed they could be won and it was a trust thing and what with him being called Colt I thought he might be just like a horse and a little scared of me.
I kept talking, keeping my voice even and light, telling him stuff. It was obvious things at first, like how the birds fluttered in the dirt when there was no water and that they was doing this to clean theyselves of parasites; and how the movement of my green dress when I walked created a draft that cooled; and how the air above the baking tar of the road shimmered like it was water and the whole world looked like it was just dissolving.
I wasn’t looking for anything from him, not on that first day. But I figured if I made myself company for him then just maybe he’d be different in time. He laughed. He found it funny what I’d said about the world dissolving. I didn’t exactly know what was funny about it, but it was a start. I laughed, too, and I thought then that he weren’t so lonely no more and I knowed we could do better in the days ahead, I just knowed it.