“So you’re saying that all these other versions of me, living in all these parallel dimensions, are in some kind of competition with me? Is that the idea?â€Â
I look down. My coffee cup is nearly empty. For the third time.
Three cups in one sitting is a bit much for me, even when I’m not feeling jittery. And, as I may have mentioned, this Marco Polo whatever the hell his name is makes me more than just a little jittery.
But let’s be accurate. It’s really more like two and half cups of coffee, seeing as I spilled about half of my first cup. And to tell you the truth, I’m not really feeling all that jittery now. Or at least I think it’s fair to say that the jitteriness I am experiencing is almost completely caffeine-induced. Sure, this guy is way beyond creepy. Not just the way he looks and talks, but something about the way he moves and, even worse, the way he just kind of is even when he’s not moving.
The man is not right.
But, hey, that could be said of a lot of people. Why, I could take the elevator down to the ground level, walk out of this building, and within a few blocks find a half dozen people just as delusional as he is.
Some probably even more delusional.
But why bother going all that distance? Right here in this building, certainly among the worker bees down below — but every bit as certainly among the queen bees up here at altitude — the place is crawling with hang-ups, phobias, idiosyncrasies, night terrors, oddities, paranoid delusions, and myriad other conditions both certifiable and un. Even my own dear wife has a kind of crazy side to her. (Albeit lovable. Sort of. Once you get used to it.) But just because somebody is a little off, that doesn’t mean they’re necessarily dangerous.
I’ve decided that, owing to the fact that he apparently jumped off the screen from a David Cronenberg movie right here into real life, my guest exudes a kind of sinister air which causes one to mistake him for a dangerous individual — and it doesn’t help when he says things like it wouldn’t have been “practical†to kill me, especially as convincingly as he says it — but, come on, the guy can’t really be a threat.
Not really.
And yet, having come to that conclusion…what? A cup and a half ago? I still have done nothing to remove him from my presence. I still sit here talking to the man as though it were a good use of my time. As though his issues really are important.
As though I really don’t dare say anything about his leaving for fear that he’ll get mad and hurt me.
And so the chat continues. It’s kind of interesting, anyway.
