“Stop it,” she said.
Another person at the bus stop had full-body tattoos and a cigarette, and I registered that she was speaking directly to me.
“Stop what?”
“You’re looking at me. Silently judging me. For at least the last fifteen seconds.”
I didn’t know how to respond to this, and hesitated a bit. “No, not at all.”
“You know you are. You were laughing. Don’t lie to me. Now stop it.”
I took a breath. “No, I wasn’t. As proof, I can generate an itemised list of all my thoughts in the last fifteen seconds. And you’ll see that nowhere in there was I looking at you or silently judging you.
“At T-15 seconds I looked up from my phone to check the bus arrival time on the LED screen above you at the end of the bus stop. It said five minutes.
“At T-14 seconds I was staring past the LED screen at the brick-clad building at the end of the block.
“At T-13 seconds, it reminded me of a local cineplex I used to sneak into when I was young.
“At T-12 seconds I reflected on a news story a few years back where two children attempted to sneak into some R-rated movie disguised as ‘a tall person in a trenchcoat’.
“At T-11 seconds I remembered it didn’t work. I chuckled softly to myself. That’s a classic trope.
“At T-10 seconds I wondered where else I’ve seen that trope before. How common was it in real life?
“At T-9 seconds I had the fanciful idea that maybe there are whole Two Kids In A Trenchcoat Conventions, where everybody there is a pair of children, one standing on the other’s shoulders like a totem pole.
“At T-8 seconds I tried to imagine what exactly it was that you’d do at a TKIAT Convention.
“At T-7 seconds it dawned on me that they’d do pretend-adult activities, like acting out business meetings and getting into bars and stuff.
“At T-6 seconds I caught myself. Why business meetings? And what would kids even know of bars? My age was showing. I exhaled a nervous snicker. I needed to get into the mind of a child.
“At T-5 seconds I entertained the notion of infiltrating a TKIAT Convention as a regular adult. That would be doubly ironic. How would I do that?
“At T-4 seconds I decided it would at least involve me walking in a weirdly affected way and lowering my voice to sound like a man.
“At T-3 seconds I prepared to practise doing exactly that, lowering my jaw and tensing up my legs to simulate stilts.
“At T-2 seconds I caught myself again. That would not be appropriate here. I’m a perfectly sensible adult standing at a bus stop with other adults. This is probably where I laughed again.
“At T-1 seconds I began to think about where I might practise silly walking privately.
“And precisely when I started to realise that I might have to wait until all my roommates were asleep is when you interrupted my train of thought,” I did not say.
Instead I just hung my head in shame.
Five minutes later the bus arrived.
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