The Nice Thing About Strangers
Creative Non-Fiction Short Stories. :) Travel, Oldsters, Love, and Compassion.
The Guy in Sunglasses
Ölüdeniz, Turkey.
He was his sunglasses. He could see perfectly well, but these were as much a part of his outfit as his long black ponytail. Reasonably, he wore the sunglasses while his children monopolized the swimming pool. Then he wore them in the lobby while reading the newspaper and chain-smoking. He wore them in the morning as he cut in front of other people waiting for tea and drained the last drops without compassion. He wore them in the dinner buffet line as he pointed to the fish he wanted and the chicken he did not.
However, upon checking out, he thoughtlessly propped his shades on the top of his head. As he crossed the hotel hallway, his eyes showed. This didn’t mean he looked around while dragging his huge suitcase down the narrow passage, without yielding to anyone, thus forcing the other guests to flatten themselves against the walls.
But it did mean that one could see his eyes when he tripped down the set of stairs that led to the lobby. It meant the brothers and sisters tiring of ping-pong and the women waiting for their husbands, and the employees with nothing to do could see him completely.
He stretched forward, lunged, trying to find the ground beneath him. When he caught his balance and was no longer in danger of falling, his eyes flashed and he became the little boy without many friends. He looked like any kid without a place to sit in the lunchroom. Maybe even the British woman whose toes were casualties of his suitcase would reconsider her curses if she saw him there, jerking his sunglasses over his flushed face as he marched for the exit.
-Ölüdeniz, Turkey.
The Nice Thing About Strangers 
AMAZING. This guy needs a smack in the head 🙂
Reblogged this on The Nice Thing About Strangers and commented:
One of my favorite trip-and-fall stories ever. And yes, no matter how cool we become, we remain small children.
One of my uncles tells the story of a guy he knew in the Marines. This guy wore sunglasses all the time, inside and outside, seemingly regardless of the time of day. My uncle finally asked him why he always wore his sunglasses. The guy said, “Because the sun always shines on you when you’re cool.”
But when you’re tripping and falling, you do not look “cool.”
Nice 🙂
Good descriptive story. May we all keep our sunglasses off inside, and allow our eyes to show our true selves!
🙂 Here here! Thanks for spending some of your Saturday at the blog.
My pleasure! :+)
That is a beautiful vignette, a glimpse into the workings of a mind. You are an extraordinary people-watcher.
Thanks so much! I always seem to find my way past the cynical view of life. 🙂 Even the seemingly tough guys can offer us something human.
The scary part is that I have been the guy in sunglasses more times than I care to admit. There is a very fine line between cool and foolish, and none of us enjoys tripping over it…
Hahaha! Oh yes. I have tripped many, many times, and I can rarely blame the toppling on my shades. 🙂 I try to walk it off well, though.
Excellent story.. over here a long pony tail man wearing sun glasses are just thought of as ‘tossers’ harsh but true. For the life of me wearing sunnies inside is not a sign of ‘coolness’ unless they are prescription and he misplaced his inside ones!
This guy with his sunglasses appears to be uncomfortable in his own skin. How sad it is that he can’t “just be”.