Short Story – People Watching

 

There is something about people watching that causes the imagination to run wild. Something about sneakily, or blatantly, staring at people as they go about their lives, that makes you wonder – just what are they doing?

There is also something about being stuck, waiting for someone, and not having a mobile with you. Such a small device, and yet, so many people are lost without one. I’m no different, my pocket feels empty without it, and sitting here, my hands are confused. They don’t know what to do when there is no mobile nestled in them, with a case to fiddle with, flipping the corner on and off the phone. 

Most of all, there seems to be nothing to do. But, this is a town. People are doing things all around me. And so, I start watching, start paying attention to other people, instead of myself. I shove my hands into my pockets, the cold biting at my fingers, and look around.

At first, I look around shyly. There is a woman with a child hanging from her hand, swinging her arm around as they walk. The child it loudly telling her about his day at school, from what I can hear, it’s mostly about what he ate for lunch. I duck my head, before looking back up.

There is a man walking down the street with a woman and a girl, who looks to be about ten. The man is the kind of person I would try my best to avoid, the kind of man who doesn’t look like you could trust him to come running if you screamed for help. I didn’t understand the quiet conversations between him and the girl, but she was laughing, and he seemed to be teasing her. I kept looking away, making sure he didn’t see me looking. He broke away from the woman and the girl, who seemed not to have noticed him go, and I watched as he stepped up to a doorway, lighting a cigarette and raising it to his lips as he looked around behind him, before opening the door and slipping inside. 

I frowned, looking at the door, now closed behind him. If the glance around didn’t signal he didn’t want anyone to see him go inside, the fact that the building was at the entrance of a dingy alley, and that there was no sign above the door, showing that it was a shop definitely said something. Was it a house? If so, was he meant to be in there? I didn’t see him unlock the door.

I glanced towards the woman and girl, still walking away from me. They still didn’t seem to notice the man was gone. It looked now that he had never been there, and the girl was talking to the woman instead. The woman, though, didn’t seem to be in the talking mood, and simply marched on, her gaze never once moving away from the pavement in front of her. 

If I were in a book, or a movie, I might stand up and follow the woman, or wait, staring at the door until someone came out, and then I might follow them. Perhaps I would even go and knock at the door, and feign ignorance when it was opened, simply pretending I had the wrong house. But, alas, I am not in a book or a movie, so I might actually survive and not find myself in the middle of some sketchy operation.

It took some time for something exciting to happen again, and I found myself wondering about the time. No one these days wears a watch, except for people above the age of fifty, or those who have smart watches. Since I am neither over fifty, or in the possession of enough money to purchase a smart watch, I had no way of telling the time. Again, I missed my phone. My friend should be here by now. If she had messaged, to tell me that she couldn’t make it, or that she wanted to meet somewhere else, I wouldn’t know, my phone on my bedside table, the screen finally broken to a point where it would no longer work at all.

The next person I noticed, who held any sort of intrigue for me, was young man. He looked to be about nineteen, maybe twenty. The hood of his hoodie, the front showing the name and logo for a sports team I didn’t recognise, was pulled up over his head, although I could see a flash of bright red hair under it – not the kind of red you get naturally, the kind of red wherein you go into a hairdresser with a picture of a fire engine, and say ‘give me this’. He kept looking down at his phone, in his hands, and then glancing around. Immediately, my logic called out ‘he’s waiting for someone’ and my imagination called out ‘drug deal’. 

I watched him curiously. He never moved from his spot, stood out in the open, under one of those trees that towns have dotted around, the pavement built around it, in an attempt to make the place look less dodgy, and to say that they’re being green. There was no way just those trees could combat all the traffic fumes, but still.

He shifted his weight every thirty seconds, and stared at every person who walked past him, as if he was looking for something. Maybe the person he was meeting had told him they would wear a red scarf, or something, so he could know who they were. 

I looked away when he met my gaze, pretending to look at the man on a ladder across the street, securing Christmas lights to the front of a shop. After a few moments, I looked back, a quick glance, to make sure he wasn’t looking at me, and then a longer look when I had confirmed he wasn’t. 

Eventually, after ten minutes of nothing happening, other than him looking at me every minute or so, as I was doing to him, he started walking away. I watched his retreating figure as he crossed the road, not bothering to press the button and wait for the green man to tell him it was safe to cross, but throwing a look both ways and crossing quickly, ignoring the honk of a car’s horn when it had to slow down so as not to hit him.

He resumed his stance across the road, simply standing there, glancing down at his phone, and then looking around. 

And, just as I was waiting for something to happen, certain I was about to witness something I could either write a book about or take to the police, a tap on my shoulder made me jump.

My friend, smiling at me, apologising for being late. I glanced back towards the man, but in that short time I had looked away, he had disappeared. 

And done!

This is based on me, I was stood outside somewhere because I was early, and this is what I saw. Strange happenings.

That's all for now...

Bye!