The Stranger

Of Interest to the Hidden Maniacs Among Us:

I was walking home, carrying a plastic bag that contained a can of soup, a tub of yogurt, and juice, and, as is my wont, I began to talk to myself. The night was my confidant; it seduced me into believing no one was there. I was tired and trusting. Events of the day had angered me, and so my murmurs and hushed exclamations were vitriolic. Perhaps my face was a little contorted. In short, I was a night-walking, self-talking lunatic with a shopping bag.

I was walking through an alley separated from a playground by a chain-link fence. It's the same old alley I've walked down since I was a child. I began to rehearse an apology I was to deliver to a friend. I had quietly resolved the angry dispute in my mind. Here, in the dark, I could do such things in peace and freedom. But just as I had reached some sort of tranquility of mind in the anonymity of the darkened street, I heard a voice come from the night. "Ben." I looked around. No one. I scanned the obscure playground through the fence. Nothing. The wooshing trees could imitate a voice. The rain-soaked streets echoed every sound. But I looked back, and saw, on top of the monkey bars, two people. I didn't recognize them, but one of them lifted its (her?) arm and waved widely. I stumbled for a greeting, but managed only, "Shit." Then another nail: "I didn't...uh...yeah." I walked away. Night had betrayed me. I had been found out, caught looking like a maniac, and I felt everything close in on me a little bit more. The name I heard in the street, my own, was a prison. I wondered if I looked the same to whomever those people were, whether my clothes fit the same. I was reminded of an Edward Hopper painting called "New York Office" that shows a woman frozen behind a huge window in an office building. The illusion of privacy, the illusion of a separation between private and public beings.