…with the homeless man grasping at the invisible pink butterflies

Studying early one morn for an impending quiz, not very unusual, I was availing myself of the solitude of a lounge area in the new expanded Price Center. As I was attempting to gorge the meaning of 17 lines of the Odyssey at one sitting, a man slowly came from behind and laid out on a couch in front of me.

Nothing unusual, except that as I looked closer, his backpack was not for books. It was grungy, with various junk hanging out around it. It was a homeless man eagerly looking for an impromptu nap. “I don’t want any dramatic trouble,” I attempted to convey to him with the faintest affirmative nod. As is often the case when waking early, I wear my sunglasses so that my eyes don’t ache from the brightness. In this particular circumstance however, the sunglasses conferred a tactical advantage: he couldn’t see my eyes if (moreso when) I were to monitor him for some erratic outburst.

I am quite tolerant and friendly to the homeless regularly, but when I am preoccupied, I, like probably everyone else, just want to be left alone from their pestering, panhandling, and unfortunately, their all too common emotional explosions.

In this case the man laid himself down to sleep, seemingly a peaceful preemption to any possible trouble. But then a few minutes after, his arms jutted up into the air, flailing at who knows what.* Then he stared at me, I stared at him- but he shouldn’t have been able to see my eyes- and he muttered a single word. Instead of ignoring him , the endorphins infusing into my veins from the flight or fight syndrome encouraged me to antagonize him with an immediate, “huh?” He then repeated this flailing after a few more attempts to sleep.

I haven’t seen him in the few days since, but I wonder where he is at, perhaps in a classroom right now, as an unwitting student, or perhaps… a professor.

*invisible pink butterflies?