Super-Sized

I believed at first, it was luck. His prophetic insistencies were irritating. I had no way to prove or disprove his predictions, but I know, that no one can see the future. I’ve heard all about the Déjà vu types, but I can only attribute that to tricks, playing mind games with people. All magic is the same. Your vulnerabilities are exploited by your need to believe, especially when, the predictions are favorable.

But this was different. Maybe because I don’t know any palm readers or clairvoyants personally. Horseshoe Halogen I do know, even though at times, like most of the time I wish I didn’t. It is not that he is flamboyant, arrogant, or intentionally annoying, but if I had to describe him, I would have to say he reminds me of blank wallpaper. He’s the kind of person who is just there, but not there. 

Horseshoe says very little. He only speaks when spoken to. It is as if he only exists when others engage with him, otherwise he is content to simply exist in anonymity.

I should explain that the reason Horseshoe is called Horseshoe is because the shape of his head reminds you of a horseshoe. It’s uncanny for someone, who for all practical purposes is invisible, stands out because of the way he looks.

I realize that is probably the reason he remains in the shadows of life only coming into the light when he is pulled from the invisibility of the fog he appears to enjoy.

I don’t know how we became friends. The word friend is a reach I suppose. We are more like associates who seem to need something the other has, although I couldn’t tell you, what that something is. 

I enjoy talking to Horseshoe, whose name is actually Herman, but he tells me although the name Horseshoe reminds him of his unique, as he puts it, appearance; he absolutely hates the name Herman. I asked him why, and he went into this tirade about it being a name of German origin, and then went on for twenty minutes about this Herman and that Herman, all war criminals. I should mention too, so one is not apt to judge Horseshoe, that he is a devout pacifist. I’m pretty sure that came from the hours he spends watching reruns of anything and everything having to do with the meditative side of Kung Fu. 

I admire his ability to accept the inherent dichotomy between spirituality and fighting, and even though he’s explained that spiritual warriors is a misnomer as they react only in a defensive mode when provoked, not an aggressive one. He claims it fits personally with the properties necessary to understand and practice pacifism. 

He uses the analogy of the notion, that there is no such thing as a pacifist in a fox hole. I assumed he was speaking of the trenches army combatants use to protect themselves from bullets and rockets. I asked how a pacifist would find himself or herself in a fox hole. He responded, “Exactly!”

Exactly, is a rather nebulous word, so I asked him to be more specific. 

He proceeded out of character to explain the reason there aren’t more pacifists, is that the majority of people place themselves in positions where they have no choice but to defend themselves. “Animal instinct,” he says. “Most people allow themselves to be pushed or pulled into situations where there is no choice but to fight. Negotiation, rather than being the first avenue to reconciliation, becomes the last, surrender.”

I see his point, but I also realize there are people, who like Hitler, are having none of the negotiation stuff. He just wanted the God like power he got from murdering people, and taking what they had. Sometimes it seems like it would be possible to negotiate with someone who is unwilling to negotiate, as they perceive negotiation as weakness. Domination is the means by which wills either lean in their direction, or they get broken. The scenario seems vaguely familiar, for some reason. 

That however as interesting as it is, was not why I’ve become concerned about Horseshoe. He explained that his dreams of late were coming true. I asked him how he knew that, as I can rarely remember dreams, and the ones I do remember, I try to forget. He claims however, that he’s always had the ability to remember dreams. He says most days he has to focus, to keep from becoming an extension of the dream he’d just left. “School, stuff like that “he says, “gets in the way.”

I can only imagine it would. The concept however I found unlikely, even more so, insane. I thought he was losing it finally. Too much time alone with his thoughts. Wandering in a manufactured fog of your own, can’t be healthy. 

I asked him to give me an example. I find sometimes if I humor him, or at least express some interest in his brief but potent explosions from the reality of the moment, he settles down. It’s as if his spurts of energy, drain his batteries.

He says he was dreaming about the person he was, that no one could see. “It wasn’t that I was a ghost or a spirit of some kind, but people just couldn’t see me. I could feel myself, I was there, but people would walk right by as if I didn’t exist.” I could see how he’d come to that conclusion, as no one really wanted to see him, when they weren’t dreaming. But I continued to encourage him, as I found until the passion for whatever it was he had been possessed by was expressed, he would continue to function in that realm. And if you think he’s scary weird when he’s awake, you should be around him when he’s in one of his dream modes.

Well I must have got lost in one of my inner debates with the other me. While contemplating the ability of someone to live their dreams, I must have become inattentive. When I realized I had drifted into my own world, Horseshoe had left ours. 

I came back to the reality I live in, and find this note sticking from my shirt pocket. It says, “meet me at the park. Gone to meet a friend.” Well I hadn’t been to the park in a while, and I do enjoy watching the ducks live life without all the encumbrances of being human. Eating, swimming, simple stuff really. No need for psychologists, psychiatrists, school counselors; must be like living in heaven. Anyway, I go to the park to the place by the pond we usually sit, and when he has one of his explosive sluffing episodes, he tells me of them.

I don’t see him, but I see this kid who looks to be about my age. He’s dressed in the same bib overalls Horseshoe wears, and his patented pink shirt and red bow tie, but it doesn’t look anything like Horseshoe. He has the same Dumbo looking ears, and that haystack appearance of that Prime Minister guy from England. But he doesn’t have that double U look that makes you want to look away or throw him at a sign post.

I walked to the bench slowly thinking, this whoever, had probably killed poor Horseshoe, and stolen his clothes. I looked in the pond for a floating body, but didn’t see one. As I got closer I could hear this imposter humming Horseshoes favorite song, “Bring in the Clowns.” When I get a few feet from the bench, this somebody turns and smiles at me like we were the best of friends. He pats the area of the bench next to him, he’s inviting me to sit by him. This guy who just killed my friend, and now he wants me to sit by him?

He didn’t look much less a pacifist than Horseshoe, so I thought I’d chance it. Besides I was quite a bit bigger, and don’t believe in all that, turn the other cheek first stuff. That’ll get you sucker punched for sure.

So I decide to chance it. I sit next to him, all the while though keeping an eye on him, and my fist clenched, just in case.

He doesn’t say anything, just keeps looking out at the pond and the ducks, like he’d never seen them before. This was making me even more nervous, because Horseshoe, although I’d never known him to study much, spent more time studying ducks than anyone else I know.

He then turns to me and says, “Well, what do you think?”

What did I think? About what? And then it dawned on me. It wasn’t Horseshoe that looked like a double U, it was just what we saw when we looked at him. 

I didn’t know quite what to think, so I just smiled, took Horseshoes sandwich, and walked towards the pond to feed the ducks.