Strangers

When I visited my sister the weekend before last, she pointed out a woman and child sitting at the front of the bus into town.

“Those two ride the morning bus with me everyday.   I love to make up stories about them.  The mom is always studying, I think she adopted the child and is trying to learn to speak her language.  See, look, I must be right, the book even has characters on it. I bet she’s studying Chinese.”

The two of then likely would have stood out even if my sister had not informed me of the secret life they live in her head.  This being a university town, every bus rider was between the ages of eighteen and twenty-two but the child, the woman, and technically, myself, though I can pass.  The child, an Asian girl of perhaps seven, looked out the window in obviously self made and very fabulous Halloween costume which may have transformed her into anything from a princess to a sparkly supernatural being, and the woman, thin and wiry, hair streaked with grey, bent over her textbook, seemingly oblivious to the kid at her side.

I make up stories about the strangers I see regularly, too. My sister and I haven't lived to together since she was nine.  Now, as young adults, our shared eccentricities are precious gifts each time I stumble on one.  To suddenly discover this amazing young person who came to many of the same conclusions as I, but from a vastly different path, almost makes up for being absent from her youth. 

At the public library where I do most of my writing, there is an elderly man, maybe in his seventies or eighties, who comes everyday to spend hours on the Internet.  He is dressed up, the way people from that generation insist on being whenever they appear in public: clothes impeccable and dignified without being fancy, shoes shined, shirt pressed.  He brings a briefcase and a newspaper. Times when I have had occasion to eyeball his screen, it appears he is managing a financial portfolio, maybe day trading.  Sometimes he reads the newspaper while sitting in the uncomfortable wooden chair, not touching the keyboard or seeming to glance at the screen for long stretches.

The other day, I came in to sit at the typer all morning before a late shift, and his usual spot sat empty.  Around my second hour of email checking and blog perusing, a bit of worry began to nag at the corners of my mind.  I waited as long as I possibly could, wasting time, hoping he would show before I needed to get to work.  There came a moment when I had to choose between assuaging my curious concern, and fulfilling my duties as an employee.  With a heavy heart I chose the last, put on my coat and headed out the door. 

We crossed paths there.  Eyes fixed ahead and oblivious, as always, to other sentient beings, he did not see the relief wash over my face.

Comments

[Bakerina]

This is beautiful, 'fern, just beautiful. What an ending.

I have often played a variant form of the game that you and your sister play, where I'm on the bus or subway, and I hear strangers' voices around me, and I try to construct both a narrative around them and a picture of their physical appearance before I actually look at them. I have maybe a 65% accuracy rate, which, last I checked, was a D minus. :)

I think I picked this game up as a kid, after reading Harriet the Spy. Not only was Harriet better at it, but her observations were funnier. During one moment where she is at the drugstore fountain, drinking an egg cream, she hears a teenage boy's voice nearby: "My father is such a rat...he's such a rat that he doesn't even let my mother open her trap," and Harriet thinks to herself, "Rat trap."

(I have veered way, way off topic here, I know. :)

[dena]

I fell in love with Harriet the Spy when I was in the third grade. I also make up stories about people. Ever since I was a young girl I've entertained my friends with the life stories of complete strangers.

I loved your story about the old man, and I would have felt exactly as you did. Worried over his absence, and relief when I finally saw him.

[yellojkt]

Reminds me of Paul Simon's "America":

Laughing on the bus
Playing games with the faces
She said the man in the gabardine suit was a spy
I said be careful his bowtie is really a camera

[Julia]

what a fascinating way to pass the time. I am the type that would simply ask them what their story is and then talk to them about it. Drives my husband nuts. If I am curious about something, I find a way to find out about it without being rude or revealing. and it's a nice way to meet people.

[Steph.]

I liked this post. I think it is also the sign of a writer...one who is so observant and imagining what others must be like or thinking. I find myself doing that a lot as well.

My sister is 8 years younger than me too, and I always think it is funny to compare how we are on certain things. It's amazing when we hit something that both drove us crazy, separately, and years apart. We're very different people, but those are the things that tie us together forever.

[Pearl]

Parallel paths are lovely. I find myself getting attached to familiar strangers.