Travels can be so strange.
On the train last week, I found myself stuck with a teen in hoodie. That bloke was a walking cliché… not in the way he dressed, but in the way he behaved.
He was listening to some music on his phone… without earphones (he even managed to annoy girls who were his age!).
At one point, I considered asking him:
- if he was an orphan and had never been taught to behave properly in society
- if he’d just lost his earphones, but was addicted to music and couldn’t survive without a few songs until he reached his destination
- if he was just too poor to buy earphones
- if he was deaf and didn’t realize that his taste in music was appalling
- if he’d been smoking things and was unable to behave like a decent human being living amongst brothers
I kept my mouth shut… for several reasons.
I wasn’t afraid (yes, I am that stupid); the teen was not very tall and looked like a matchstick. As well, since he knew that he was behaving like an idiot (he turned the sound down when the conductor came), he’d probably have turned the bloody thing off if asked.
Then, and this is more important for me, I tuned the teen out (bless Zen!) and I took down notes to use him as a character in some story. I don’t have a plot yet, but come one day, he’ll be in one of my stories… all the more since he was attempting to sing along (attempting is a keyword here, the poor kid couldn’t carry a tune to save his life!) and he was nodding like a stressed chimpanzee. He was utterly ridiculous.
I don’t know that kid, and I’ll probably never see him again, but I almost giggled when I saw that he got down where I stopped.
I knew I had barmy neighbours, but this one’s a winner (silver medal, I’d say).
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