"Looking Right at Ya!"

"Hey!" "Hey, you!" "Over here!" I heard a squeaky voice call out in the middle of nowhere. In the park, sitting on the bench while trolling through Meta. I stopped, sat up straight, and turned my head east, then west. Nothing stood out, and all I saw was a group of geese walking to the other side of the grass. I knew it wasn't any of them. If that was the case, then I must have lost a couple of screws in my noggin.

Insanity didn't look good on me at all, so I ignored the voice that I thought was taunting me. I didn't see anything, but I could hear that squeaky voice taunting, "Hey, I am down here, can't you see me!" Once again, I stood up with my hands on my hips. My pouch hit the ground as my coins spilled everywhere. There was a jogger who passed me and nodded. Aggravated, yet I smiled and reached down to pick up my coins. I knew that I was going to need them for my bus fare. The jogger gave me a weird look as he hurried away from me.

Who was this calling me, and why were they trying so badly to be seen? I looked over and brushed my shoulders as if there were dust particles present. There is an old saying that you have a good angle on one side and a bad angle on the other. For some reason, I was beginning to not feel skeptical about this being a myth. Although I was hearing things, I had no visibility of what it was. Call it old age, but I was beginning to second-guess my every move.

Searching for my comfort zone while waiting for the bus to arrive, I was beginning to become ruffled. My nerves were getting the best of me, and people were beginning to stare. They were staring because I was sitting alone on the bench, asking, "What!" "What is it?" No one was around to answer my question, so when people walked by, they were whispering as they stared at me. I was making a spectacle of myself, and all I could hear was "You can see me!" "See what, I cried!" "What is it or who am I supposed to be seeing!"

Later on, a little couple came over and sat on the opposite side of the bench. They spoke to me with kind words, and I stood up and said, " Yes!" "I can see you both, so stop harassing me, alright!" The old couple looked at me and then each other. They got up and moved to the other bench. I heard the old lady say, "Whatever he's on, I don't want any parts of it!" The old man looked over at me and frowned as he called me an old buzzard.

I wasn't offended because I felt like I was getting something off my chest. But then I heard a voice say, "Be for real, Jo!" "Jo?" "Who the hell is Jo? "My name is Dave!" "Now, who are you, and why are you wanting me to see you when you are not visible in plain sight. I sat on the bench with my hands waving in distress as my body was making strange gestures of confusion. People continue to walk by me, giving me strange looks as if I looked funny.

An officer was riding a bike through the park, stopped, and asked me if I was ok! "I looked at him and said, "I am fine, and I would be even better if he stopped asking me if I can see him." "Who, replied the officer. "Who is it that you are referring to?" I began to look around and saw that no one was in sight to respond to my questions. The officer whispered to me in my ear and told me to settle down or he would have to haul me in.

I felt ridiculed and harassed as I turned away from the officer and the crowd. I felt like there was some type of Whodini or Jackal that was playing games with me. This going back and forth was beginning to wear me out, and I no longer wanted to be a laughingstock. It was as if I were having a whole conversation with myself. The good and the bad were teaming up on me, and they were winning. At the end, my hair was standing straight up in the air, and my shoes were on the wrong feet.

The bus arrived, and I was finally able to board. I headed straight back so that I could be alone. Although I didn't have to worry because the other passengers didn't want to get near me. They thought that I was off my meds or that I had escaped from a mental hospital. The old man who called me a buzzard took his wife's hand and said, "Come, Dear, let's sit close to the door!" He had his wife's hand in one and a cane in the other as if he dared me to try him. But I was neither a fighter nor a troublemaker. I was just an old man wanting to get home.

As the bus took off, I stared out the window, watching myself. Thinking about today, and how it turned out to be questions in my head. The laughter in the background made me cover my ears. The voices were getting too close for comfort, and I was on the edge of my breaking point. I wanted off the bus so that I could cover my ears with my pillows. Smothering the sounds that taunted me all day was the only comfort that I needed. And it was what I wanted.

With my head on the window seal of the bus, I watch the image on the other side sit up and begin to smile. In that mirror image, I could see it speaking back at me. It had the smile of a Jackal while asking, "You can see me?"