What do you think?

This morning, on the Riverwalk, temperatures in the mid 70s, with a nice breeze and the green and reds and fuchsias of the flowers and water and music playing. Enjoying a blueberry muffin and a latte (with two Splendas). I saw this man who was all of the following things: creepy, funny, and sort of intriguing. I had seen him earlier on the escalator, talking softly to himself and chuckling. And the cute teen girl next to him on the escalator, with raspberry pink hair pulled up in Bjork buns, wearing her ice cream shop uniform, when she realized he was talking to no one, moved uncomfortably and unobtrusively away from him and smiled at me as if to say "I'm not with him." It wasn't a mean smile-- in fact, it was very sweet.

But later, I saw the same man from the escalator walking about the Riverwalk, near the outside wrought aluminum tables. He was tall, actually very well-groomed. He was wearing sandals and loose, comfy clothes-- and really looked like the typical Riverwalk tourist out for some souvenir shopping. Until you realized he was having an animated conversation with no one you could see. He wasn't harassing anyone, or yelling-- nothing at all aggressive.

But that, my friends, is where I'm going with this. I read lots of sci-fi and fantasy, where you find people who communicate with ghosts (that most people can't see but which are real in the story) or fairies, or a hologram from the future tuned to the brain waves of the person you can see. This guy even waved his hands about in an emphatic gesture now and then. Perhaps he was talking to someone I couldn't see-- and not in a "schizophrenia" sort of way but a real, magically there but invisible to my mundane eyes way.

Because, in so many ways, escalator-talking-guy didn't have those tell tale signs of crazy-homeless-guy. You know, he wasn't smelly, he was wearing clean, well kept clothes, well-shaven, hair cut. He seemed almost normal.

It's something to think about. Next time you see someone who is talking to themselves (but not apparently on a "hands free cell phone" which has led to new kinds of crazy-talking-people, and is another story), maybe he's really a visitor from the future, with a communication device implanted in his head. Or he's talking to a very real fairy, that, if I could see her, would be blue, and sparkly, with long silver hair and a bad attitude.

Or maybe the guy is just off his meds.