The Man Outside

I couldn't sleep last night. This is pretty normal for me – always a life of extremes, of either passing out with tiredness or a restless insomniac. Last night the fan appeared too weak and then too strong; the mosquitoes appeared too hungry, my book appeared too boring and then not boring enough. The searching hands of a four year old Blind Queen kept coming into my head, and then Beautiful Smiles and Small Monkeys. I went to the window and looked out from between the bars which hung my clothes drying from the day; my purple head scarf blowing Gita's lice out into the evening sky – or back into my room. The green wooden shutters were wide open and looked down into the courtyard below. If I stood on my tip toes I could just make out the corner of the two plastic chairs pulled together by the night watch man. Hare's bicycle. The massive metal doors from my 'Modern Lodge – the Ideal Place for Tourists' remained firmly closed. Beyond the door lay the man which I had eaten dinner with.

I couldn't tell if the Man was sleeping or just conversing with himself. I wanted to believe that he was awake – like me; looking down upon him. I saw his hand appear next to his laying head and then it would pause. Perhaps waving away mosquitoes? But no, he brought it down to his side and continued the motion. The dark blue blanket which he usually wears around his head was now around his waist. Perhaps he was as hot as I was. But what about during the day when it is so much hotter – when he hides under it? Or when he sits at the table hooded and almost invisible apart from his elegant fingers quickly working his rice and daal?

The Man is always with his blanket but this is because he has no where else to keep it. The first time I met him I was talking on the phone sitting out side of a shop. He approached, bent down in front of me and began to touch my filthy feet. At the time I was too preoccupied with Portugal to pay him much attention but I definitely didn't allow him to meet me – or rather I definitely didn't allow myself to met him. Now I still find his persistent touching of my feet annoying. Now it annoys me because it still prevents me from really knowing him. Because he makes himself different – when I know he is not – when I know he is a Man who speaks perfect English, who even reads English which means that I should be able to easily communicate with him. Who I know has the kindest smile which he gives more to his chest than to his companions as his head is always tilted down. Who I know that has the most gentle manners and who always tries to make me eat the food bought for him before finally devouring it. Who went riding on the back of Hare's bike tonight and then came back riding the bike with Hare on the back. But when I bend down to lift up his touching hands, he stands readjusts his slipping blanket and then turns to the next foreigner and continues the process. For this is how the Man lives his days. Among the foreigners. Watching them and walking behind them, and understanding so very much about our lives and who we are but only giving us the quietest mumbles in return. His comprehension of English and his nifty bike riding skills is proof that he was not always on the Outside. That at one time he had a life not only of his own, or a life on his own, but which connected with people on the same level. Where he spoke to comprehending eyes and read to receive information and rode to go somewhere. Now all of his days and his nights are the same. Walking around the street which he has literally lived on for over ten years, bending down, standing up, bending down, cloaked in his blanket of a bed sheet. I watch him laying at the side of the road, waving his hand to himself. He places them carefully on his chest and then lifts one hand up to continue again. I am mesmorised by his precise movements, I feel intrusive blindly watching him.

Suddenly and without warning he leaps up. A dog is frozen in time and then snaps from its trance and runs towards the Man. The loud Beeeep of a car warns of its approach but it is an unwelcome alarm clock for the Man, who with one arm over his eyes to shield him from the white light jumps up to shoe the jumping dog away,. The light passes and the startled dog runs down the street. The Man stretches back out on his patch of road: in front of a laundry service, and opposite a rubbish pile, next to the gutter of the sewage water and underneath a sign reading 'U.S Travel'. The Man pulls his blanket firmly over his head.