Tuesday, April 08, 2008

this is a gem.

Monday, April 07, 2008

i fall in love with every person i meet on the train.

i remember talking to this girl on the platform one night. it became evident quickly that she was atleast one can short. she had that kind of wide eyed nieveity that betrays the simpler nature.

she was asking me how i became so wet. the train i had been travelling on had 'terminated' prematurely, and i was waiting for the next one to come through to take me to my final destination. anyhow, there was this incredible storm with pelting rain, and lightning and thunder, and it was all so exciting i couldn't help but run around in it in this strange suburb. so after this exertion i had come back to stand on the platform dripping wet.

she was telling me how it's best to be careful because she'd heard that storms could just 'hit you'. i thought this was an interesting idea, and i followed it up. it would seem that she had heard about storms 'hitting', but presumably from not having a clear idea in her head what a storm was composed of, the idea had never got beyond the abstract idea of 'hitting'. indeed it was almost like she imagined a person being hit by a storm, as being bowled over, as though being hit by a large bat.

i thought it unfair that one of God's simpler creatures, who often turn out to have a greater appreciation for nature and the like than we supposedly more sophisticated types have, should be that fearful of storms (more fearful of storms than they should be feared. [and they _should_ be feared])

so i took to explaining. "well it depends on what you mean by being hit. you certainly get hit by a lot of rain drops, and it is possible to get hit by lightning, though you usually need to waving a metal rod in the air (like a golf club) for that to happen." i then launched into a discourse about golfers being hit by lightning.

it is a kind of perpetual source of amusement to me, that people continue playing golf in storms. waving a large metal stick in the air, while lightning hunts around in the clouds above looking everywhere for a metal stick such as a golfer wields.

it was funny, and she saw the amusement in it. she was so earnest, and such an attentive pupil. she would repeat back to me the ideas i was presenting to make sure she understood them.

and then the train stopped at her stop, and we said good bye, and i was very sad that i would probably never see her again.