Something Different

(Note: This would hopefully be just the start of something longer, and not just this in its entirety)

I had not known what to expect when I saw him, standing there, towards the horizon, looking off into the distance with some kind of dream like stare. He was not your run of the mill kind of chap, he was, without being cliché, different. Different in the sense that he found it acceptable to wear tartan printed trousers and a white work shirt, a blue cravat around his neck. He wasn’t even old, he was not even much older than me, early twenties at a guess. Large dark rimmed glasses were thrust upon his pointed nose, his hair messed up as if it hadn’t been combed for days.

He took little notice of me, yet no one really does. I go unseen, part of the crowd, part of the daily run of people bustling to and fro, to and fro, little care for who or what was passing them. It was unlikely they would even notice a celebrity if they walked past. Ok, backtrack, they would, as that is all our society ever seems to care about nowadays, but they wouldn’t notice the different or quirky, just the people that they knew.

I continued sitting undisturbed, the pages of my book rustling slightly in the breeze, dappled in light. But the words no longer enchanted me, precious beautiful bounding words now paling into insignificance against this new stranger, the idea of something new in the town that hasn’t changed for 120 years. Apparently it is the town’s selling point, I just think it’s ridiculous. Life is about change, a constant difference in every waking day. Not in Maudeville.

I glanced up over the top of my book, peering, but trying to do so in a way that was unnoticeable to the rest of the park goers, who still did not seem to have noticed the man. He was walking towards us now, the sunlight glinting in the corner of his glasses, the mouth turned down in seriousness or determination, it was difficult to tell. It was then I noticed something I had yet to realise at all, that thing on his back. A giant magnifying glass, slung over his shoulders like a guitar, but yet oh so much more interesting. I could feel neurons in my brain firing across synapses in excitement, in delight at what was surely yet to happen. He was something different, very different indeed.

I snapped my book shut, placing its well-worn pages into my satchel and slung it across my own shoulders, feeling it dig slightly into the thin shirt. Uncrossing my legs, I saw others staring at me, wondering what I was doing. In a town where everyone’s movements can be mapped out like a timetable, I was not supposed to move for another half an hour. But I was breaking with tradition. I had gone past caring, sometimes you just have to do what feels right, what your gut instinct tells you, and to me this was it. This was the moment I had been waiting for. The moment to break the mould, to break the boundaries that had held me in to the system.