Mr. Strange

I'm sure most of you have your own stories of strange people living around you. The ones that behave irrationally, sound weird or just look a little off.

Today I met another one of Those People. Chinese male. Looks to be in his late forties or early fifties. Might have been a tad younger, though, just looks aged due to excessive drinking which is almost always a given. Short black hair, as usual. On a rickety bicycle. You don't call many bicycles "rickety", do you? This one was. It creaked even when it wasn't moving.

As he rolled along on his bike which had the largest wheels I have seen for some time, I noticed, to my horror, that he was also clad in a tight-fitting long-sleeved shirt. Buttoned up, including the collar and cuffs, despite not having a tie. Then I saw that said shirt was white. With blue-green polka-dots. Big ones. And he completed his outfit with a dirty pair of shorts that looked like he soils himself as a morning ritual and broken slippers. A look made all the more delightful by a tattoo of a huge grasshopper-like thing on his left thigh. Dragons and tigers and eagles and women I understand. But a bug? Not even a spider or scorpion?

As I recovered from being transfixed by the myriad of hues on his person, he started cursing and swearing in several Chinese dialects. Now, I don't speak very fluent Madarin or Hokkein, but I could tell that he was telling some imaginary spectre a few feet above his head to be a dirty mofo, to put it more eloquently.

I could only watch in amazement as he continued on his rickety bicycle and stopped again soon, only to repeat or resume his fit of swearing. A few days ago, I saw a special on Tourette's Syndrome, and if this guy is indeed sufferer, he has my sympathy. But even those victims had better colour co-ordination.

Just as I thought it couldn't get any worse, he stopped. The silence that ensued was eerie, broken only by the unexplained creak creak of the bicycle as he sat there, unmoving. Then he reached into hi back pocket, which was bulging. At first, given the state of the shorts he was weaing, I thought the worst, but he took out a phone.

Not a cell-phone. A phone. You know, one of those cordless ones you have in your living room? Yes, a cordless phone. And he proceeded to talk into it. Cursing and swearing, of course.

He rode off after a few moments, perhaps the reception was poor or he needed to relieve himself somewhere more fitting. But I was left scratching my head and wondering. WOndering to myself, asking myself one question.

"How in the hell do people like that go around in public?"

Of course, like I said before, there are so many like him, in one way or another. Everyone's a little bit crazy, some say. Remember, I'm the one that professed to having the urge to kick babies. Still, I'd wear something less garish if I do go over the edge, I'm sure.