Day 35 : Guilty-Yann Tiersen

I just thought of something. Suppose I were to change my identity completely and disappear for a year but stay in contact with two or three close friends through letter mail. Then after a year I write to them and explain that I am coming out of hiding and that I am going to find them. I tell them not to expect to recognize me because I have changed so many aspects of my appearance and I no longer resemble the old me at all. I tell them that I will find them when they least expect it in the most unexpected of places. During the year that I am in hiding I befriend a variety of new people of all different shapes, sizes, ages and ethnicities. Of the people I meet, I become very close with four of them: a 60 year old caucasian woman, a 9 year old black boy, a 24 year old red haired man, and a 43 year old half japanese half french man. I teach them everything there is to know about me. I tutor them in all of my likes and dislikes. I share all of my wildest thoughts and strangest ambitions. I teach them to talk like me and to think like me. They study my subtle mannerisms and learn to mimic them carefully. My old friend receives the letter that contains my resolve to pay an unexpected visit and is overjoyed. She carries on with her daily routine and waits for the moment that she will see me again. Months after receiving my last letter the fresh excitement of the possibility of seeing me begins to fade. She no longer looks around in the market for familiar eyes and cheeky smiles. Then at 3:47pm during a Classics lecture on the transience of human mortality a fly lands on the knuckle of her middle finger. She swats it away and looks for a moment to the clock on the south wall. Her gaze falls and is met by a red haired man sitting below the clock. She looks away but his gaze persists. This does not go unnoticed by her and for a while she does her best to avoid his stare. When she can no longer ignore it she looks back and meets his eyes unflinchingly. After a moment he smiles and nods.

Precisely 12 minutes prior to this strange encounter a middle aged asian man steps into a deli and asks a young lady for a ham sandwich. As she makes to hand him his dish he thanks her and says something softly that causes her to drop the plate. It smashes to pieces on the floor around them. The asian man smiles. Neither move to clean it up.

Both the asian and the red haired man claim to be their old friend and pen-mate. The women are at first unconvinced and think it a clever joke, albeit an unsurprising one from their crafty friend, but after little over an hour of the most convincing acting job these women have ever seen they begin to wonder whether they were right to so quickly dismiss the possibility that the person before them was me in disguise. After all, the men carry on my persona unfailingly and never cease to insist that they are really truly: me.

This goes on for several hours of testing conversation, reminiscing and heavy laughter. An all around splendid time is had by all. At the end of the meeting the two leave amicably and agree, mainly out of curiosity on the women's end, to meet again. The young women go back to their lives and continue to quietly miss me. Correspondence is maintained with the first several letters focussing on the hilarity and unusualness of the meetings. I reassure them persistently that they did in fact met me and not some impostor I had put up to the challenge. References are made where appropriate and the nice subtleties lend substance to my story. The women are always skeptical but enjoy the great mystery. Nearly three months after they are first visited I write to them again telling them to expect another visit sometime in the weeks to come.

The subsequent meetings are different for a number of reasons. For one, they take place at different locations and at different times and perhaps more significantly, this time the women are met by what appear to be an adolescent black boy and an elderly woman.

~These are hard times for dreamers~

Song of the Day: Guilty by Yann Tiersen

"You must be wondering why I brought you here." APWBD