The Traveler
It had been a rough, long, boring day at work. I had been coding mindlessly for hours and at this time, I had no idea if what I was doing was even right. I decided to call it a day and left the office. The sun blazed. Not with fury, but the heat left me disgusted. And the air was so humid that I was enveloped with sweat in seconds. I figured I’d get a beer and walked the one mile I had to if I needed a beer after work.
I’m not a very talkative guy. I like speaking to new people because I often think that they just might be interesting enough and we might become the best of friends, but that was just a fantasy. A siren’s call I fell for often. Having been ghosted by yet another girl a few nights earlier, I was in no mood to talk to someone this disgusting evening. Saying to myself “just go to the corner, put on your headphones and no one will talk to you”, I entered the bar. The cool air from the air-conditioner hit me at once and I was instantly soothed. I wasn’t so mad at the world anymore.
It was Friday evening. Dammit, I had forgotten how crowded it can get here on Friday evenings. I looked around to see if there was an abandoned corner, but there was none. I saw a man sitting at one of the stools at the bar and he looked like he was some 40 years old. He was dressed in a way that gave off a vibe I cannot exactly describe. A pair of black jeans that were certainly old, but one that was certainly fashionable when it was made, a black hoodie that looked like it had been worn for months without being washed and a grey T-shirt that was so long that it almost reached his knees. Altogether, my first thought was “here is a man who doesn’t respect himself”. Hoping that he won’t talk to me, I sat down next to him and nodded at the bartender who poured out one of the local beers into a large mug and slid it to me.
I noticed that the man next to me was stinking. From the corner of my eyes, I could see that he was playing a game of chess on his phone. I decided to ignore him and kept sipping my beer buried in my own thoughts.
After I was drunk to the point where I couldn’t really have rational thoughts anymore, I involuntarily started observing him playing. He was playing 3-minute games and he played with a level of certainty that I don’t often see amongst players of the game. He was playing well, but then he screwed up badly when the endgame neared. He lost miserably in the end. He opened the chatbox and sent a “good game” text to the other player. That made me smile. He started a new game and played well again. And again, towards the endgame, he started messing up and he lost. And sure enough, he sent another “good game”. This happened a bunch of times and within 15 minutes, he had played and lost five games. And he had sent “good game” to all 5 opponents. This was bothering me a little, but reminding myself that I didn’t want to speak to anyone, I said nothing.
Then I noticed something weird. He had a Rolex on his wrist. I am not a watch connoisseur, but that looked expensive. But it looked like it had never been maintained well and it had scratches all over. And then I realized that he was using the latest iPhone, which cost well over a thousand bucks. And like his watch, it had scratches all over it. And that is when I noticed that everything he had ranging from his clothes to his shoes to his gadgets, everything was obviously very expensive but poorly maintained.
At this point, I admit, I was intrigued. He had had a few beers since I had been here, so I thought he might have been too drunk to even notice how he was playing. I decided to speak with him anyway. I asked the bartender for a coke to clear my head a little and once a bottle was slid over to me, I gave a little cough to convey my presence.
I tilted my head slightly towards him and said, “Hey man, how’s it going?”.
“Hey. I’m good. How are you?”
“Having trouble at the endgames, huh?”
“Yeah, I’ve never been great at finishing games. Eh, you win some, you lose some”.
“Hmmm”
I got the feeling that he didn’t want to talk any more than I wanted to originally, so I left him alone and continued to sip on my soda. It was nearing 11pm now and the bar was almost empty. We sat there for around 10 minutes not saying anything. He had stopped playing chess now and was instead browsing Reddit. I noticed that he was answering questions related to travel and his answers were long and seemed pretty detailed.
I loved travelling and I had spent many years exploring Peru and Argentina. I decided to give the conversation another shot.
“Hey. Couldn’t help but notice that you are on the travel subreddit. Do you travel often?”
At this statement, I could see his eyes lit up. He turned towards me and with an obviously enthusiastic voice, he said:
“Oh yes! How about you? “
“I do too. I spent a few years working in Argentina and often visited Peru too. Those are the only countries I have visited outside the US though”.
“That sounds pretty cool. I’ve never visited South America. I have travelled extensively through Europe and Asia”.
Then he went on to describe some stories from his travels. He told me about how he had spent a few weeks at Chamonix at the foothills of Mont Blanc and how he had failed miserably at trying to climb the mountain. He told me about some of the most eccentric and interesting characters he had met while travelling between Paris and Frankfurt on those superfast European trains. He told me about the time he had gotten super drunk in Bangalore and the misadventures that followed in his attempt to catch a bus that night. And he spoke about his stay at a Buddhist monastery in Cambodia and his visits to Angkor Wat. And apparently, all of these were stories from the last five years.
I was impressed and absorbed in his stories and didn’t realize that the time was already 3am. The bartender rang the bell for the last call.
The sound of the bell seemed to have suddenly shaken him out of his state of enthusiasm and I noticed the melancholy come back to him. He shook my hand and apologized if he had bored me with his stories. I shook his hand back and thanked him for his stories and bade him a good night. I asked the bartender for one last coke to get rid of the cloudiness in my brain from all the beer I had had. My new acquaintance patted me on my back and wished me a good night. Picking up his backpack, he stuffed his phone and wallet into it and stumbled out of the bar.
I sat there for a few minutes, finishing up my soda. And once I felt I would be able to get back to my room without falling asleep on the street, I stood up from my stool and turned towards the door and began to walk. I felt like I stepped on something and I looked down to see a navy-blue little book. I picked it up and I realized that it was someone’s passport. I opened it and saw my acquaintance’s face staring back at me. ‘John Hillmar’, said the name under his picture. The date of issue had been eight years ago. Curiously, I leafed through the pages and I saw that there were no entry or exit stamps. There was a visa to India, but there did not seem to be an entry stamp there either.
I heard the bar door open and John Hillmar stumbled in. He looked at me, gave a wide grin that you don’t see on anyone sober and then it faded quickly as he saw what I had in my hand.
He walked towards me, grabbed the passport from my hand and gruffly said, “I was wondering where that bloody thing had run off to”.
He muttered a word of thanks and without looking at me, turned and walked back towards the door. He opened the door and pausing for just a second, said quickly, “it was nice meeting you kiddo”.
He stepped out, paused again for a second, and shuffled into the night.
It had been a rough, long, boring day at work. I had been coding mindlessly for hours and at this time, I had no idea if what I was doing was even right. I decided to call it a day and left the office. The sun blazed. Not with fury, but the heat left me disgusted. And the air was so humid that I was enveloped with sweat in seconds. I figured I’d get a beer and walked the one mile I had to if I needed a beer after work.
I’m not a very talkative guy. I like speaking to new people because I often think that they just might be interesting enough and we might become the best of friends, but that was just a fantasy. A siren’s call I fell for often. Having been ghosted by yet another girl a few nights earlier, I was in no mood to talk to someone this disgusting evening. Saying to myself “just go to the corner, put on your headphones and no one will talk to you”, I entered the bar. The cool air from the air-conditioner hit me at once and I was instantly soothed. I wasn’t so mad at the world anymore.
It was Friday evening. Dammit, I had forgotten how crowded it can get here on Friday evenings. I looked around to see if there was an abandoned corner, but there was none. I saw a man sitting at one of the stools at the bar and he looked like he was some 40 years old. He was dressed in a way that gave off a vibe I cannot exactly describe. A pair of black jeans that were certainly old, but one that was certainly fashionable when it was made, a black hoodie that looked like it had been worn for months without being washed and a grey T-shirt that was so long that it almost reached his knees. Altogether, my first thought was “here is a man who doesn’t respect himself”. Hoping that he won’t talk to me, I sat down next to him and nodded at the bartender who poured out one of the local beers into a large mug and slid it to me.
I noticed that the man next to me was stinking. From the corner of my eyes, I could see that he was playing a game of chess on his phone. I decided to ignore him and kept sipping my beer buried in my own thoughts.
After I was drunk to the point where I couldn’t really have rational thoughts anymore, I involuntarily started observing him playing. He was playing 3-minute games and he played with a level of certainty that I don’t often see amongst players of the game. He was playing well, but then he screwed up badly when the endgame neared. He lost miserably in the end. He opened the chatbox and sent a “good game” text to the other player. That made me smile. He started a new game and played well again. And again, towards the endgame, he started messing up and he lost. And sure enough, he sent another “good game”. This happened a bunch of times and within 15 minutes, he had played and lost five games. And he had sent “good game” to all 5 opponents. This was bothering me a little, but reminding myself that I didn’t want to speak to anyone, I said nothing.
Then I noticed something weird. He had a Rolex on his wrist. I am not a watch connoisseur, but that looked expensive. But it looked like it had never been maintained well and it had scratches all over. And then I realized that he was using the latest iPhone, which cost well over a thousand bucks. And like his watch, it had scratches all over it. And that is when I noticed that everything he had ranging from his clothes to his shoes to his gadgets, everything was obviously very expensive but poorly maintained.
At this point, I admit, I was intrigued. He had had a few beers since I had been here, so I thought he might have been too drunk to even notice how he was playing. I decided to speak with him anyway. I asked the bartender for a coke to clear my head a little and once a bottle was slid over to me, I gave a little cough to convey my presence.
I tilted my head slightly towards him and said, “Hey man, how’s it going?”.
“Hey. I’m good. How are you?”
“Having trouble at the endgames, huh?”
“Yeah, I’ve never been great at finishing games. Eh, you win some, you lose some”.
“Hmmm”
I got the feeling that he didn’t want to talk any more than I wanted to originally, so I left him alone and continued to sip on my soda. It was nearing 11pm now and the bar was almost empty. We sat there for around 10 minutes not saying anything. He had stopped playing chess now and was instead browsing Reddit. I noticed that he was answering questions related to travel and his answers were long and seemed pretty detailed.
I loved travelling and I had spent many years exploring Peru and Argentina. I decided to give the conversation another shot.
“Hey. Couldn’t help but notice that you are on the travel subreddit. Do you travel often?”
At this statement, I could see his eyes lit up. He turned towards me and with an obviously enthusiastic voice, he said:
“Oh yes! How about you? “
“I do too. I spent a few years working in Argentina and often visited Peru too. Those are the only countries I have visited outside the US though”.
“That sounds pretty cool. I’ve never visited South America. I have travelled extensively through Europe and Asia”.
Then he went on to describe some stories from his travels. He told me about how he had spent a few weeks at Chamonix at the foothills of Mont Blanc and how he had failed miserably at trying to climb the mountain. He told me about some of the most eccentric and interesting characters he had met while travelling between Paris and Frankfurt on those superfast European trains. He told me about the time he had gotten super drunk in Bangalore and the misadventures that followed in his attempt to catch a bus that night. And he spoke about his stay at a Buddhist monastery in Cambodia and his visits to Angkor Wat. And apparently, all of these were stories from the last five years.
I was impressed and absorbed in his stories and didn’t realize that the time was already 3am. The bartender rang the bell for the last call.
The sound of the bell seemed to have suddenly shaken him out of his state of enthusiasm and I noticed the melancholy come back to him. He shook my hand and apologized if he had bored me with his stories. I shook his hand back and thanked him for his stories and bade him a good night. I asked the bartender for one last coke to get rid of the cloudiness in my brain from all the beer I had had. My new acquaintance patted me on my back and wished me a good night. Picking up his backpack, he stuffed his phone and wallet into it and stumbled out of the bar.
I sat there for a few minutes, finishing up my soda. And once I felt I would be able to get back to my room without falling asleep on the street, I stood up from my stool and turned towards the door and began to walk. I felt like I stepped on something and I looked down to see a navy-blue little book. I picked it up and I realized that it was someone’s passport. I opened it and saw my acquaintance’s face staring back at me. ‘John Hillmar’, said the name under his picture. The date of issue had been eight years ago. Curiously, I leafed through the pages and I saw that there were no entry or exit stamps. There was a visa to India, but there did not seem to be an entry stamp there either.
I heard the bar door open and John Hillmar stumbled in. He looked at me, gave a wide grin that you don’t see on anyone sober and then it faded quickly as he saw what I had in my hand.
He walked towards me, grabbed the passport from my hand and gruffly said, “I was wondering where that bloody thing had run off to”.
He muttered a word of thanks and without looking at me, turned and walked back towards the door. He opened the door and pausing for just a second, said quickly, “it was nice meeting you kiddo”.
He stepped out, paused again for a second, and shuffled into the night.
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