Claws and Curls

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I was on the train the other day. My mind drifting along with the passing parade of human activity on the other side of the glass. My thoughts drifted with my observations, drifted with my thoughts, drifted with my dreams.

I especially like watching the other people in the carriage without them knowing I'm looking. Often I watch via the reflections in the window. The chatterers, the readers, the sleepers and the lovers, all rocking and swaying to the rhythm of the train. Except the other day...

Well that is what I noticed first, he didn't rock, I mean he didn't move in relation to the train, he was like a fixture. As I watched, he moved his head to look out of the window. A lean handsome bloke with black hair. A close cropped beard and an aquiline nose, you know, a Roman nose. Then he turned back to his book, 'The Singularity', and not once did he move like the rest of us flotsam and jetsam.

He got off at the same stop that I did. And as I had a little while before work started, I decided to follow him. The footpaths are pretty crowded at that hour of the morning, as all the secretaries and counter-jumpers swarm to work.

Me, I'm a store man at a health food warehouse. You know the sort of place, we buy all the organically grown food stuff in as cheap as possible, and resell it at about three times its worth.

Me, well, I eat well , but I'm no yuppie. You won't find no Guru's picture on my wall, and no fancy herbal supplements in my cupboard. I grew up in the bush and I like my food to be fresh. I like the organic stuff but I share farm on weekends at a friend's place out in the Blueys, and I bring back my weeks fresh veg and meat with me.

Anyway I managed to follow this bloke. He didn't seem to notice me, well I don't think so anyway. But then, whoops, bang, he disappears. He up and walks straight through a door. Straight through it, not opening it first like I would have to do, but straight through it. I looked around and realised it was the Martial Arts place just up the road from our shop.

"Strewth", I thought, "I've got to stop watching those cheap Asian movies. But there it was, the bloke was gone and the door was shut, it had not opened at all.

So I dropped it. I managed to forget about him till morning tea, when I went in to get some of that beaut organic Niu Guinea coffee. The checkout girl and I have had a thing going for a while, so I manage to get away with a few things occasionally. Well there was the bloke I'd seen earlier, paying for some stuff. He looked up and smiled at me. Well I nearly pissed myself. He handed me a business card, nodded and left.

I stood there stuffed, like some kind of air head, till Alli started giggling.

"Well what's wrong with you lover, you look like someone just stole your balls!" The boss appeared so we didn't get to talk again till lunch time.

"Well ?" she asked, "What was that all about?"

"What ?" I said absentmindedly. I'd heard Alli, but I didn't want to appear too hung up on what had happened. I just looked at her in a vague sort of way.

"You know, that bloke in the shop, the one that stole your balls," she added slyly as she slid her hand onto my crutch. This act called for stern and prompt action so I wriggled happily and said,

"Oh nothing really, I just watched him walk through a wall this morning."

Alli took her hand off me just as I was starting to rise to the occasion, and looked at me as if I was sick in the head.

"What are you waffling about ?" Well I explained it to her and Alli just sat there and slowly finished her lunch.

"Well," she said tossing her lunch bags in the recycled paper bin. "He's obviously very good at his martial arts!"

I looked at her disbelievingly. "Next you will be telling me that you believe in UFO's!" Alli looked at me really strange like.

"Well yes I do actually, mainly because I've got one parked in my shed up country!"