The space we inhabit.

I am sitting in a Lunds, minding my own business, sipping on a delicious hot chocolate. The place is empty. There is a line of tables to my left, I am sitting against the wall, trying to get some tax work done, some money work done and all of those things I have to do, "have to" being the operative words there.

I am sitting here just getting settled when this guy walks up to the table next to me, which doesn't have a chair at it, and unloads all his stuff. He proceeds to adjust the table for some reason, moving it within a foot of me and then walks down the line of four tables, picks up a chair and drags it to the table.

I guess I am exerting a safe presence at the moment... Or maybe he has something planned for us.

Anyway, he breaks open his brown bag pulls out a banana, a fresh one, so it smells pretty good and a red devil cake doughnut. After this he pulls out a plastic knife and combines his fingers and knife to cut up the doughnut and chow down.

He takes the doughnut piece, stabs it with his knife and eats it from the end of his knife. Then he pulls out a normal cake doughnut and does the same. I didn't see how he ate the banana. It wasn't as disconcerting as the eating of the doughnut.

I kind of feel like he and I are sitting on the same side of a booth at a restaurant, how cheesy couples do when they are in love. I've never done such a thing.

This scenario gets me to thinking, why am I so uncomfortable that this guy decided to sit right next to me, and I mean right next to me. If I am not careful I will hit him with my elbow if I am typing. So my left arm is being held tight to my side.

What is it? Am I such a big guy that I need space? Is it that I don't want to seem like I am too close to this guy? What prevents me from saying "Hello" to him, to asking him about how his day was? What is it that keeps me from possibly creating a new acquaintance.

Space. The space that surrounds us is somehow an extension of us, an extension of our comfort and when people so brashly move into that space, just the fringes of it, mind you, we get set on edge, I do anyway. Would it have been any different if he was a she? Would it have been any different if I knew him, even if it was only as an acquaintance.

Boom, he stood up to throw away his knife and bag, pushed the table and it swung over and hit mine. I told you he was close. I am not sure why I am so uncomfortable, he is minding his own business, I am watching him more than he is watching me. I don't know what it is about the space we inhabit being our space. I don't know why this guy makes me uncomfortable. Maybe its the knife...

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