Familiar strangers

There was this old blind man sitting right outside the Guardian of the small shopping mall in my town centre, with a stack of Singapore Sweep tickets on his lap.

My neutral just-passing-by mood fell away to this indescribable feeling of - a mixture of regret, sadness.. Melancholy? Does melancholy sum it?

I've seen him around since I was a kid. Can't remember very well but I think he used to peddle his stuff under a covered walkway between two blocks. I used to think, what if I grabbed his tickets and run? He couldn't catch me. Then because I wouldn't do that, I also thought, it would be sad if someone really stole his stuff..

It's been years since I last saw him - how he had aged! I don't know, just feeling a bit, weird, at seeing him again.

I might not have forgotten him even if I never saw him since childhood, just a distant memory at the back of my head, but this recent chance meeting seemed to have etched him on my mind forever. The lone man I saw as a child, the same man, older, I just saw as an adult. I wonder what his family is like, if he's having a hard life.. Why is the poor man still selling sweepstake tickets? Or perhaps I think too much, perhaps it's his way to pass time?

We all know such people, don't we? Familiar strangers, people you see often enough to recognise them or their routines but never really know.

The fat boy staying in my block - now a fat man - who is a bit strange, mentally. I just found him odd last time but now I think he's a bit menacing.. Then there is this auntie who works in the coffee shop since I was ten or so but she doesn't seem to have aged at all! And the sisters at my fav nasi lemak stall in the hawker centre who have grown fatter but are still as friendly. The uncle on a walking stick whom I pass by every morning on my way to the bus stop. And of cos the so many people at the bus stop - I see them every day that I know what bus each will take!

Related are friends of friends. I think I talk a lot, so some of my friends have heard me mention my other friends though they have never met or have met only once or twice. This is particularly true for KLK, Gandhi and CY. But perhaps this is a bit different la :p

This brings me to one of my fleeting thoughts from ages ago: how some people can become friends while some people just never have the chance to even meet. Does it all voice down to yuan fen?

I did one of those tests (again, yes) lately, google for "Tibetan personality test" and disregard all the crap about wish.. Despite knowing the randomness of such tests, I felt compelled to believe one particular result about my "twin soul". And I realise I could not imagine what life would be like without certain people in my life. I think it's all a matter of chance - which is in fact yuan fen isn't it? I'm grateful for what fate has given me, the good things for what they are, the bad things for how they train me.

Side: Eason Chen is on air - love his voice..