Scribesmeister v4 (In Zero Gravity)

“Between what matters and what seems to matter, how should the world we know judge wisely?” - E. C. Bentley

While I was waiting outside the hospital last May, there was this man in his mid 60s who sat beside me who I didn’t even notice being there. I didn’t even lift my eyes to look at him from the newspaper I was reading. As I was turning the pages, he asked me something which I hardly heard. So I looked at him with questioning eyes and then that’s when he started talking. I don’t know, maybe he asked if he could have a little of amount of my time to talk or if he could borrow the newspaper… I didn’t hear. But when he started talking about his life, I started listening intently. Even when I barely say anything, he goes on as if he has rehearsed the lines over and over again in his mind, as if it’s what he has been longing to say for a very long time, as if it was meant for me to hear all along.

And then he talks about pain…and I don’t know how to react. I don’t know how to comfort him. The way he describes the feeling of being left behind by your wife when you had lost all material possessions, the feeling of being completely mystified by the people you used to know so well, the feeling of not being able to fight for what you desire because everyone tells you that you deserve nothing else but your fucked up life - that’s when I knew, what I know about pain is nothing compared to that. The worst thing that could happen to me is when people I love start dreading me for who I am and then I’d start to feel worthless.

So I couldn’t tell the man that I understand what he what he’s going through, nor could I tell him that it was okay. By the looks of it, he just wants me to be there to listen, to have someone to pour his sentiments on and to just get it off his chest without being mistaken for being crazy when anyone sees his talking to himself - so he resorted to get down to brass tacks with me instead. It is evident that what he needs is not someone who sympathisizes, he just needs someone like me to feel good about my what-I-call-a-miserable-life.

Then he left saying thank you even when I didn’t sy much during the almost-forever conversation. Dialogue. Monologue. I felt like I had been a prop that was used to make everything look natural. Real. Sensible. Sane. And yet I was happy - because I felt that even strangers don’t think that I could say anything bad and that I could be trusted. Even if it is also possible that they don’t give a damn about what you think of them.

And just now, the urge of wanting to have one moment to sit beside a normal stranger has become vehement. Just an hour with a total stranger - who has not a bit of knowlege of who you are. Just an hour to help me, free me and save me from these fatal emotions. A hero whose opinion of you won’t matter, whose ears were fated to just listen to what you say and whose life is unaffected by you and uninvolved in yours.

I need to say what bothers me and walk away. Expect to never see that person again and all your secrets will be with that one person you chose to be part of your life for a brief moment - unless the twisted fate catches up on you. I just need…a stranger I can thank for.