The Strange One

There was a strange one. I mean he wasn’t really strange, just a reserved one. He could quite well understand himself, but everyone else failed to, or just no one else had ever tried to understand him.

That strange one lived all alone, but often went out of his flat to roam along the long streets with headphones tightly fastened to his ears. He could hear almost nothing except the tunes coming from his mp3 player. And that gave much pleasure to him. Someone would yell something, but the only thing he could hear was: “So I’m packing my bags for the misty mountain…” And maybe a lot of cars would drive just in front of him, and instead of the motors’ sounds, he’d hear the proceeding lines of the same song: “…where the spirits go now” and then: “over the hills where the spirits fly…” That was so amazing to him.

Sometimes he would take off the headphones from his ears and listen to the things happening in the world. Just a simple pleasure of hearing someone’s voice behind you, and in front of you, and everywhere…someone crying of joy or weeping out his tears. To hear them all together, to hear the trees when wind blows and the rain when it dropps on the roofs of houses. Just the kind of observation!

Oh, and he liked observation, he liked to observe everything and everyone on his way with his eager eyes. When he found something to stop his glance at, he would start to analyse it, as if searching for some hidden occult meaning. He would examine it over and over again. He used to watch people and their actions. Sometimes he would take a notebook and write something down so fast and secretly that no one ever imaged what that was. He had a big old camera and he wanted to keep record of every single gesture with it. He found it interesting how a fixed shot could express motions, feelings and even thoughts.