When I walk home in the winter evening at dusk, after, some may say too many, drinks at work, looking down watching one foot step and then the other, one step after the other, step, step, step, I never feel quite so alone.
“Hey mate, what are you doing?”
“I’m watching my feet.”
“Why are you watching your feet, mate?”
“So, I don’t feel quite so alone.”
“Shouldn’t you be watching the way you are walking home?”
“Oh, I’m part bat,” I say. “So that is okay.”
“Part bat, you say?”
“Yes, that is why I can watch my feet this way?”
“That is why you can watch your feet this way?”
“Yes, I can see my feet and then I’m not walking alone.”
“You can see your feet so you aren’t walking alone?”
“And my bat senses guide me home.”
“Your bat senses guide you home?
“And all the way, I never feel alone.”
“Because you look down and watch your feet?”
“Yes, if I didn’t look down, I might just feel the defeat.”
“Watching your feet, you never feel alone?”
“That’s right, as I make the long walk home.”
“As you make your way home?”
“Yes. Can you hear that?”
“Hear what?”
“That echo.”
“That echo?”
“Yes. There is an echo.”
“An echo, you say?”
“Yes, a district echo?”
“No. I can’t hear it.”
“Oh look, it has stopped.”
“It has stopped?”
“There it is again.”
“Again, you say?”
“Yes, again.”
We both stop talking and listen? He has no idea. I laugh to myself inside.
“You say you are part bat?”
“Yes, I can see in the dark.”
“It must be great to see in the dark.”
“It is when you are drunk and you have to get home, it is essential.”
“I have never seen a bat putting one foot in front of the other.”
“You expect them to fly?”
“Yes, I expect them to fly.”
“That is a different kind of bat altogether, my friend.”
“I didn’t know there was another type?”
“Oh yes, it takes all sorts to make up the world.”
“All sorts?”
“All sorts.”
“I think I hear that echo.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
I laugh. “I have to go.”
“I have to go.”
I turn and walk away.
“Nice talking,” he says.
“Nice talking,” I say.
“Talking, talking, talking.”
I don’t say anything else. Those last few beers I had are really starting to swirl in my brain.
I look back and smile.
He smiles at me. He puts his pointer finger to his forehead and then lifts his hand into the air.
I touch my forehead with my finger. I turn and walk away.
I look down at my feet. One foot. Another foot.
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