An Encounter - by Katerina Gibson
ISLAND | ONLINE ONLY
One day in a foreign country in a district you did not know existed until the year previous, you will run into someone you know, or used to know, from your childhood. Seeing you first, they will be so shocked as to stop short, which, when the moment of recognition hits — after the mental arithmetic required to identify a face you know in a place you don’t and age it, applying wrinkles, receding hairlines — you do also. The two of you stop on the sidewalk (pavement?), a few metres (feet?) between you, staring at one another, before the invisible barrier is broken in nervous laughter. Considering the small miracle that has just transpired, the talk remains small, with neither of you exclaiming on the weirdness of the situation. They are on holiday, while you are in the country on research, although you pretend to be doing the former. The truth inevitably leads to the perception of bragging you’d prefer to avoid (is there a chance they are doing the same?). You both have the sense that the other has more urgent places to be, although that can hardly be the case. It isn’t for you you’ve been in this small town (village? province?) a week and exhausted what could be considered tourist attractions (a charming pebbled beach? a sleepy vineyard?) within hours of arriving. Your meeting occurs as they are exiting a café, perhaps after a coffee, or an unsuccessful attempt to find a meal before midday, something the country you are in does not seem to believe in (a talking point neither of you offer). They are doing well, as are you (why did you say that?) and it was nice to run into each other, but you’d best be off (where?), and they should be going too and with that you both continue walking to your made-up destinations.
That’s not fair. They might truly have places to be, trains to catch, a wife or husband they need to be meeting, small children that need checking on. You wouldn’t know; you didn’t ask. It would have been simple to find out, to suggest a drink or seek out lunch together. Maybe they know some of the language, more than you at least, or could have introduced you to another English-speaker in the region with whom you could have formed a friendly acquaintance, someone — however cursory the subject matter — to talk with.
At the very least you could have spoken to this person you knew for or an hour or so, after which you would feel slight numbness in your cheeks at the foreign sensation of moving your mouth. You’d feel relief in knowing that they turned out okay, better than you were expecting; but instead, as you walk away from this encounter, you recall running into them in much the same unfulfilling manner a few years previous, a memory so fleeting you had until then forgotten it. Perhaps, even worse, you didn’t ask how their parents were, even though you know the town they grew up in has been ravaged is being ravaged by fire, currently devouring large sections of your country, acres of bushland evaporating in seconds; although they didn’t ask either (and everyone knows someone). Or worse, having just found out about their loved ones and the fire, they were rushing out the door of the café to call someone, and your appearance delayed them. Maybe it’s not as dramatic as that; it could be they are on vacation with someone they are not married to, and were being cautious, fleeing in guilt.
Perhaps the initial hesitation and faux pleasantries were brought on because one of you has a radically different physical appearance: a layer of tattoos, a missing limb, dramatic weight loss, or an awkward stutter that failed to start your conversation, that rattled and died like a difficult lawnmower. Or maybe it was awkward because you dated in high school, or worse, almost dated in high school, whatever that means. Or no: maybe they were your bully, and the shame of seeing you, in well-adjusted adulthood, caused them to flee. Maybe you bullied them and couldn’t bring yourself to apologise. You were friends, very best friends, and you haven’t seen each other since you fell out over a gruesome childhood game of monopoly; as teens you made out with each other’s boyfriend behind the gym after school; one of your parents declared the other a Bad Influence.
Will you run into them again? you wonder, walking still with urgency, up the stone street (across the grassy field; down the winding staircase) to places unknown. Will the encounter repeat itself again, your lives a double helix, encountering and un-encountering one another at the same velocity? Or are you running parallel lines, and your brief encounters have been faults, accidents in time and place? Will these cracks turn up again? Or will you turn around right there? Retrace your steps, call out, how silly, you were mistaken, you don’t have anywhere to be. Would they like to get a drink? You think there’s a pub this way. Will you step forward, ask them how they are? Rip open the contents of their life? ▼
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