Stranger Than

stranger than…

Well, the strange and confusing presidential election seems to finally be over, albeit with no clear answers left spoken, but it's still nowhere near as bizarre and disturbing as what happened to me this past gray, bitter Sunday morning…

I was hungover, sure, but I had pulled myself together pretty well considering. Back at the house, the roommates and the girlfriend were all still sleeping off the evening's revelry, so I at least had a step up on
somebody in the world…

There was a young woman playing with her puppy in the park. Despite the cold, crisp air blowing down my neck, I couldn't help but stand there, hands-a-pocket, and admire the playfulness of it all. The voice came out of nowhere. It almost didn't even register at first. It asked,

“So, what's your story?”

I turned to see an attractive blonde, maybe twenty-six, bundled in her winter best standing behind my right shoulder. I was stumped at first, but she was attractive, and I was hungover, so I guess I thought I'd try to be charming. I stole a line from a Hal Hartley movie.

“I don't know, but I guess I'd like it to be a tragedy with a happy ending.”

She asked me something else that I didn't answer, I don't even remember what it was. It got swept away by her next question.

“Who, exactly, do you think you are, anyway?” she challenged.

I could feel it all over that this was not a conversation I wanted to get any deeper into. Suddenly I was confused, and getting more and more hopeless with each passing moment.

“I don't know, I'm just some guy and I'm late for work.”

I hoped that would bring an end to the entire exchange. It almost did, but she had to get the last word in first. She laughed at me as she turned away and announced, “You're pathetic.”

I stood there, frozen, while she walked away. The little black bulldog puppy was still playing with its leash behind me. What had just happened? Who in the hell was she? My booze-shattered databanks clicked and whirred, but I couldn't place her. Was she someone I knew who was offended that I didn't remember her? Or was she some random woman that I might have drunkenly humiliated myself to ages ago? On the other hand, she might have just been suffering from some psychotically extreme case of PMS which is forcing her to wander around town, insulting complete strangers. Even worse, I reasoned, she might have just been some hungover delusion, some personal assault my psyche decided to throw at me when I was at my weakest.

There was no way to know.

There was one other thought that nagged at me, and that was how, exactly, did she know? She spoke with authority, and I was in no place to argue with her. Had she been staking me out? Watching me walk hungover through the park day after day? Perhaps on some dark city night I had offended the Wrong Person.

It's all random, of course, and there's no real lesson to be learned from any of this. In most ways, I've moved on, and am finally forgetting what it all felt like. But stand warned, my friends, because even at the most harmless moments of these gray winter days, somewhere out there is a complete stranger waiting desperately to cut you to shreds.