I was working graveyards at a gas station once. An eccentric came in, late. Too late for certain kinds of people. I used to write things on the receipts I found there, the copies people didn't want. It's not that I had anything to say, its not that I care all that much about the environment, I just saw all that empty space and... well I felt a desire to fill it, I suppose. The man had things he wanted to tell me. Things that looped around and got really confusing. I don't remember much of what you, I mean he (who am I writing for) said to me, but I, right now, seem fixated on his eyes... what he looked like when he was looking right at me. I would talk with him, about vaguely political things I think... as I spoke, he would write down individual words I used on those receipts  then hold up a hand, silencing me. Then he held up the word, and deconstructed. He would say the word, focus on how it sounds, words it sounds like, words that grow out of it. He would draw circles around certain letters, reorganize them, talk about this arcane mechanism he saw when he looked at those squiggly lines. It was like some religion he was making up as he went along, and he seemed... happy. I resented him, I pitied him, I envied him. I resented him, I pitied him, I envied him. I... hmm.

There was another man, another eccentric. He worked at the local sign shop. His van was covered in decals. WAKE UP, it said. 9/11 was an inside job, et cetera. We were friends, of a sort; I think he was one of the only people who heard what I had to say with nothing to lose, perhaps I was one of the only people who listened to him, asked him how he was doing, asked him questions about what he said, etc. It wasn't pity, charity, or anything like that. I NEEDED HIM. I guess, I figured if I could be there for him, I could still keep faith that someone would see something in me. He entered my empty gas station one night with a baseball hat covered in tinfoil on his head. He explained to me that he was playing a joke on everyone who thought he was crazy. He told me that I was the only one who got it. Other people who saw him, I guess, just saw a metallic cherry on top of an absurd, hopeless sundae. That was the night you, um, "he" told me that I was your only friend. Hearing that scared the fucking daylights out of me. Knowing I meant that much to him made me feel violated. What does that mean? Looking back on it, my connection to him feels warm, valuable, nice. Yet, I don't talk with him anymore. I don't seek him out. Is it a conceit that I enjoy him from a distance? Maybe...