so, the strange man has a name, after all. and it's stranger than i thought it would be. something to do with a flatbottomed jar used in chemistry. his father, he said, used to be a teaching assistant-or was it a janitor?-in a middle school science class.
after a weekend of being convinced that i was appalled by the strange charm of this man, this morning, i just decided to go to that public library two short bus rides from my place. beside the bloated building that is the library is the row of slim fronted stores, mostly foodshops, where in one of them generic glass-paneled establishments, the strangely named man works. soon enough, he walked into the library. it was not lunch break yet.
talking to him again for that short time-he needed to get back to his shift before his super beeped him-i let go of my desire to understand the snappy crackle of his hold over me.
i took the bus home, seated myself a seat away from a mother and her nervy toddler and, to liberally reword keats, just ceased upon my midnight of desire with no pain. the mother was indifferent to her son rummaging noisily through their plastic bags of grocery hogging the rest of the seats in our row.
i think i'm beginning to understand strangeness. it is a mother making no fuss of her child who enjoys only the mealy and saccharin sweet flesh of overripe melons picked in the garden in the last days of august.
