The Man in the Street

6/5/10
It's 2am. Again. How is this getting to be a theme? These late nights/early mornings, these sessions of insomnia?
Sleepless nights seem to preclude deep and brooding thoughts but, then, this blog imports to Facebook, far from anonymous and widely available. So I'll hamper and censor the deeper reflections in favor of the more approachable, like tater tots and why an empty street dabbled with the washes of street lamps isn't really lonely. I can picture a man standing under one of those street lamps. He is, of course, in a trench coat and fedora. Smoking a cigar. The Man in the Street.
Why is he there? Well, let's see. He has insomnia, and he comes outside to ponder why an empty street isn't lonely. Then he realizes, it is. It is lonely, but in a few hours dawn will break out over that little isolated street and it will become part of the bigger world. Connected... If only by light connected nonetheless.
Maybe some nights that's enough and he snuffs his cigar and goes inside and lays in bed until sleep takes him hostage.
But not tonight.
Tonight, of all nights, he remains and waits it out, watching. And he notices things he hasn't noted before. Like the person darting in and out of shadows. Never mind, it's just that lousy raccoon that keeps eating his garbage. He could chase it away, make it think twice next time, assuming it thought once in the first place.
And then a light comes on, a porch light but it's quickly snuffed out as a woman exits her house. Or is it her house? A low, whispered conversation in the doorway, a few furtive looks, and she's shuffling down the street, looking warily about her, not for fear but in readiness of being discovered.
Our Man in the Street has a few options. She's walking his way and it will only be moments before she notices him. Unless he slinks stealthily out of the light and back into shadows. She passes by and he can follow suspiciously or remain there or go back to his post and continue watching.
He could walk out to meet her. Ask what she's doing at 2 in the morning on a lonely street. Offer to see her home. I imagine our Man is a gentleman.
His next option is to remain where he is, let her see him and respond accordingly. Certainly she will respond with shock. It's clear she doesn't expect to meet a man in the street, just smoking off the insomnia. The way she keeps looking about her, though, makes him wonder if she would be shocked. Maybe she would stop and say hello. And they could exchange stories. She could tell his and he could tell hers. Or several versions of hers. Just like I'm telling you several versions of his.
In another version, he's the man at the door, whispering instructions like "avoid the man in the street," or "ignore the insomniac, he's there every night."
Tonight he is the Man in the Street. Maybe tomorrow night he can be the man in the doorway, but that's another version, another story.
Same theme.