A little whisper in the dark

An old nemesis from the past

Never having been mistaken for anything other than rough around the edges, I've made surprisingly few enemies through my slightly more than a quarter century of life.

One of the few that did, I met today. I didn't even realize that he was back in town and there he was, on the same bus I was. I wouldn't have noticed him if he didn't stick his leg out into the aisle the way he did. But stick his knee out he did, and I gave him a long look. Still the same face I nearly put my fist into. I am pretty sure he recognized me. I suddenly realized I was tense, holding my breath, and the veins on my arms were showing, so tightly I clenched the handrails.

He looked away.

There's still unresolved animosity between us, and I looked away and concentrated on TVMobile so that I would not move towards creating a scene, since he did not move toward it. The last time it escalated from a quiet talk into a shouting match that nearly became a punchup at a deserted multi-story carpark.

Funny how our paths seem to keep crossing. He popped up in the same hobby I'd picked up somewhere along the way. I shall not even try to deny the satisfaction I felt when he got himself first ostracized, then banned from a local online forum that we are both part of. Despite my biases one thing I did not do was to single him out for destruction; that he took care of by virtue of his own character. I just had to watch the blazing trail he'd left, and the public disdain he'd earned.

He has a tattoo of Felix the cat on his right calf.

He'd gotten off the bus not long after. I looked at him as he disappeared into the crowd, but he didn't look back.

posted by Chung Leong @ 2:38 AM