Morning Actions

I arrived at the bus stop and sat down on a bench. There was another man there, ageless and quiet. Sounds from this morning were echoing in my ears like muted white noise. I tried to guess what was ringing in his, but his face betrayed nothing to me. Before long I noticed that he was intently watching my actions. His eyes followed my hand as it retrieved my phone from my coat. He traced my steps as I got up to check what time the next bus was coming. He said nothing and didn’t lift a finger. I was uncomfortably aware. As the bus I had been waiting for finally approached, I realized that I had forgotten my bus fare. I looked around uselessly, my predicament not going unnoticed by my counterpart. With a smile he offered me some of his money. Surrendering to the charity of a stranger, I accepted his offer and we boarded the bus together.

And for that moment he was a man. I found a seat, coincidentally across from him. Forgetting the man and his eyes, I compulsively searched through my backpack. I was rummaging without a cause, as if I could kindly ask the driver to head back to my house if I had forgotten something. Once this ceased to entertain me, my focus returned to my surroundings. I returned to find that the charitable man was no longer a man. It was a gaze; that same unfaltering, disembodied gaze. Now it watched as I looked around trying to untie a nervous knot in my stomach. Surely the people around me could see that this was no man seated before me. But they didn’t, they saw a man staring at something. Occasionally their eyes would trace his to me, but then they would lose interest.

I retreated to the buildings and people passing by in the window. The man had smiled to me and paid for my ride today. He had done nothing else. His gaze had been with us though. My morning would not have been the same without it.