The World Goes By

“The world is spinning impossibly fast, and yet we don’t perceive that movement in the slightest. When do we ever take a moment?” 

He looks at me as though I am a mad man, and for all intents and purposes I am. Our worlds are impossibly far from one another. They will never collide. If he ever travels this way, I will be long gone. And yet I will always keep an eye towards him in the hope he will dare to think his way to a place that is glorious in its loneliness. 

To acquire knowledge and actually use it to become a fraction of what we were always intended to be is a rare and wonderful thing. Some may say that it takes a special form of courage. I doubt that in my case. The truth of it is simply that I was too scared to stay where I was. I didn’t want to be caught napping. There was a discomfort in the comfortable. It never fit me and so I stood out. I became a rare thing in my reluctance to stand out.

Rare. Mad. I suppose it’s one and the same. I am not like other people. If I sit like this and watch the world go by, I am unseen. Invisible to the naked eye. He sees me well enough though and he knows me best of all. He is all too aware of the essential me and he loves me all the same. I really do believe that he loves me because of it. But that could be a dream I desperately want made real. An indulgence that I will not question too closely. We all do it. Let me at least have this one thing. So many myths have been dispelled in my lifetime. Perhaps too many.

It is a cheerful Spring afternoon. Summer is waving nearby and Winter sulks as it realises it really is about time it went on its holidays. It is by no means warm by the standards of the coming Summer, but it is warmer than it has been and there is a sedate elation amongst those who have dared to believe that the sun will bestow heat once more.

I sit back into the metal chair and relax into my surroundings. I am at home here. More so as I pluck up the cup and sip at my tea. The flapjack seductively lays on its plate, but I am in no rush to go to it. There is time. I have everything I need. A predator in repose. I have always been predatory in these situations. We are visual creatures and I am at my best when I deploy my look. We have ridden here on our motorbikes. Funnelling a speeding snake of tarmac through our beleaguered brains. Pitting ourselves against nature and a parade of Sunday drivers travelling at a cognitive snail’s pace as their crates of metal hurtle hither and thither. 

This then should be rest.

It is.

And it isn’t.

I have always been a people watcher. I consume the sight of them in every way imaginable. I have an insatiable appetite that only seems to grow as I do. The imaginative part of my brain seems to have broken down boundaries. It exists just behind my eyeballs and delights in the show, writing back-stories and the next chapters for the individuals it finds an interest in. And let us be honest here. Everyone is interesting, or more to the point, has the capacity to be interesting. 

I take people on flights of fancy. Experimenting with their intended destiny. Warping and weaving to see where a thing could lead. Working theories. What-if analyses. There was a time when I thought this was whimsy. A bit of fun. It was always more than that though and it has developed as I’ve indulged it more and more. 

Narrative is magic. It has a subtle and unbending power. All the while, I’ve been making sense of the world around me. Observing behaviours and interplays between people. Creating hypotheses in order to work out what I am and how I am supposed to be. 

I think I may have cheated the system though. Sitting back and listening. For that is what I have been doing. Becoming a receptor and processing the passing stimuli. I love it and my love for this information has predisposed people to give me more. Not gossip or tittle-tattle. They open up and bare their soul and in having done so, they then apologise. Suddenly awkward in their nudity. Unable to understand what has happened. Why they have given me more than they have ever given themselves. They offload a burden and for a while they are confused. But when they return to me, they are lighter. Happier. More them. They are beyond mistrust because they are already up on the deal, and in knowing this, they also know that I will never misuse what we shared. 

Why would I?

And there we have it. I am this seemingly passive paragon of virtue. A smiling voyeur. An unassailable rock planted dead centre in the river of life. I’m not like anyone else. This is not to say that I am safe. There is no way that I even tend towards harmlessness. 

There is a harmony to me. The tune I play resonates. None of us can say that we are not bad. We are not binary. Never one thing or the other. We are everything and more. It is how we bring everything together that counts. The symphony of us is what is heard across our lives.

I don’t want to say that I caught my ego out and realised that it wasn’t acting in my best interests. That would be an act of hubris and my ego would glory in it. I know my ego is ever present. A part of me, just as my arm is. Or my dick. Or my bumhole. These aspects of me are like opinions. Everyone knows I have them. But they don’t want to see them.

I take the flapjack and bite into it. The structural integrity of it is pleasing. It holds itself together well. There is a taste of syrup. I wash it down with a slurp of tea. 

“We should do this more often,” I say to him.

He grins, “you say this every Spring.”

I nod. He’s right. The changing of the seasons has about it the cycle of life and death. I miss the opportunities that the lighter and brighter months bring with them. The depths of Winter have my soul in the paralysis of involuntary hibernation and I don’t dare to hope that I will emerge from it. Whenever I do, I never feel like I have done justice to the months where I could ride and then sit in a spot like this and take in the world and make it a part of me.

“We don’t do enough of this,” I tell him all the same, “never have.”

“Which part?” he asks.

I eye him and smile. He is a chip off the old block. Maybe he is already trailing my orbit. Further along the curve than I ever was. I consider a glib answer; all of it. That would be fun and we’d both acknowledge that. But I’d be letting us both down. And so I think of and compose a suitable response.

“The ride,” I begin, “you are never so alive as when you’re riding.”

His eyes sparkle, “there were some good roads on the way here. We should do that route again.”

“But now we’re here,” I continue, “after the ride. Relaxing. But never relaxing.” I pour more tea from the pot and drink some of mine, “ah! There’s nowt like a good cup of tea!”

He follows suit, “I have to second that,” he says as he places his cup back on the saucer.

“We are resting,” I say, ”but only to a certain extent. We have to ride back and we have one eye on that ride already. We cannot be complacent. Half a job well done, is no job at all.”

“Still,” he says, “we’re enjoying this though?”

“Absolutely,” I agree, “but with those heightened senses of ours, we’re taking in more than most do. It’d be a shame to waste that wouldn’t it?”

He breaths a silent laugh, “it would. How often are people given super powers?”

“Use them wisely, padawan,” I say this in an affected voice that is an approximation of a famous actor’s.

“I’ll get another pot of tea, shall I?” he asks this, but does not wait for an answer. The first pot was too small.

“And milk!” I call after him. If he is annoyed, he does not show it. As if he’d forget the milk.

Upon his return, having settled and poured more tea he slouches in his chair as though he has no care in the world and no real interest in his surroundings, “go on then.”

I shake my head, “no, you start.”

He is reluctant. Nervous. Embarrassed. He shouldn’t be. Not in my company, but he is all the same. I get it. I will witness his voyeurism and no one likes to be watched watching. There is a taboo to this taboo. And yet, once we start, it will not matter. We are the audience of reality and we can share our enjoyment as the stories of life play out. It is getting started that is the problem. The engine takes some cranking and in the silence before it erupts into life, there is an awkwardness. A worry that the endeavour will fail.

However I am more awkward than the pending awkwardness. Determined too. Worst of all, I am an advocate of a bad deity and he knows that I will launch into proceedings that he would rather I did not. Not exactly dangerous. More dangerously challenging.

He looks about him with a feigned nonchalance. And in an instant he has caught my interest. Him. Not the world about us. This moment is different. He is different. He has seen something of intense interest, and I am drawn to the potential of his gaze.

He moves away from his intended target and I almost laugh. I see the way his eyes circle about her, never landing upon her.

“Ah!” I exclaim as quietly as is possible.

He does not have to hear the word. He sees me well, “what?” he says in a defensive admission. 

I smile and nod.

He shakes his head, but the game has begun and he will roll the dice. There is no other option. Besides, he wants to explore this possibility. Needs to. The stakes are higher than I’ve ever seen them. Tension and anticipation pull the moment taut and there is music in the air.

He looks upon her as he is about to speak and the words he intended to utter are stilled. I know better than to respond. I remain stock still. I understand what has happened. She has caught his eye and everything is changed.

Everything alters in a magical heartbeat.

Now, as he speaks, there is a truth that is rare in this world. I pay no head to the cursory story he weaves, but instead I listen to him. My son. He is transformed. And in his transformation I lose a part of him. I knew this would happen, but not here. Not now. Not like this. There is a sad delight that wraps itself around my heart and squeezes it with a bitter sweet hug. There is an inevitability here. Then I see him shine a little more. He grows right there before me and my shrouded heart is thankful for its bonds. Without them, it would burst.

“She’s in the secret service,” he says, barely supressing an idiot’s grin. I envy him that grin. It is the idiocy of love, caught on the breeze and breathed inwards. Heady and strange. A drug that removes the body and casts the soul upwards in elation.

“And?” I ask. Careful not to break the spell. Willing him on.

He glances towards me, barely aware of his surroundings, but somehow he manages to continue, “she’s on a dangerous, clandestine mission. But the person she was supposed to meet has not turned up. They lay dead on a nearby hotel bed. A bullet through the forehead.”

I do not correct the flaw in his back story. There are no nearby hotels. We sometimes joust in this manner. But now is not the time.

“So, she is in peril?” I prompt, “the killer may know she is here.”

He nods and grins, “nothing she can’t handle.”

“But were someone to approach her, they would have to know the secret phrase?”

His forehead creases, then comprehension dawns, “that’s only for an exchange between enemies though. ‘The black rose can only be seen at night’. Phrases such as these are seldom required.”

“She’s dangerous though?” I enquire.

“About as dangerous as it gets,” he grins again.

“Knows sixty seven ways to kill you with a teaspoon?” I ask.

“Already worked out two more,” he fires back.

“That’s unfortunate,” I reply, “I hope she devises at least one more quite swiftly, she can’t leave it at that.”

He’s distracted by my quip. Really she’s his distraction and I have become a buzzing inconvenience, “wha…?” he starts, then there is a click between his ears, “Dad!”

I love that moment. This lad who I realise is really a man, shows me his inner self. He is the little boy who he always was as far as I am concerned. No apron strings. No ties to hold him back. Only a deep love that will never lose sight of who he is.

There is no need to look in her direction to know that she has got up from her seat and is in motion. The momentum of change fizzes around us. This could be something. It could be nothing. I fear that it will be everything. 

I fear because love is elemental. It asks the questions that few dare speak aloud. It opens us up and makes of us more of what we were always meant to be. Love is a passionate gardener. Pruning and digging and hacking away at us until our beauty shines through.

A breeze caresses the nape of my neck and I catch the scent of honeysuckle and youth. I want to cry. Tears of joy for its presence and tears of grief for my loss of those times. I anticipate the sight of her, but there is a pause before she comes into my periphery. I almost chuckle as I hear the sound of something soft hitting the floor behind my chair. 

The die is cast and the bait dangles on the hook. He is up and retrieving the artfully dropped item. A glove.

“You dropped this,” he says to her, touching her elbow gently so she notices him.

“Oh…” she is surprised and there is a little confusion until she recognises her red leather glove, “thank you!” not too enthusiastic, but there is a warmth there that I cannot help but like. 

My script for the next act has them joining me. I realise the selfishness of this as they walk away from our table and the café. I take a moment to compose myself and rid myself of the inexplicable jealousy I feel. A conflicted bag of vipers that I cast as far from me as is possible. 

There is nothing for it. The pot of tea sits there willing me to pour another cup. I love the simplicity of the moment and I return to the world as the amber liquid fills my cup. As I sit back and relax, I see a furtive man in a trench coat skulking nearby. He has emerged from non-existent shadows and is as conspicuous as a cherry on mashed potatoes. 

I take another mouthful of tea before rising reluctantly from my seat. The Black Rose was taken care of an hour ago. Whoever this character is, he’s bad news. Unfortunately for him, I’m a dark news flash and I’m about to ruin his day.