I'm suddenly thinking of my stalker at this moment. For those of you who are confused, let me just tell you the whole story briefly: There was this middle-aged man with very black eyebrows and red lips (maybe he wore lipstick) standing next to me at the bus-stop. Our eyes met briefly (well since he's so queer-looking naturally I was prompted to stare longer than usual), and before I knew it he sat himself beside me. We stayed in this position for about half an hour before he turned his body towards me and suddenly started to speak to me as though he had known me for a long time. After that he tried to follow me home by taking the same bus as me but I stopped abruptly at another bus-stop and tried to escape in the crowd of dispersing people.

Everytime I'm at that bus-stop, I'm wondering if I'll bump into him again. I never did. Interestingly enough, I wasn't afraid of him. I was rather curious about him- this man, perspiring profusely, catching my eye and deciding that yes, I was his companion for a little while. Now I can tell you that many people were staring at him, so my stare shouldn't have been anything special to attract his attention. I'm wondering how a single look can send a thousand signals, and what signals he received from me without me knowing. I'm also wondering what happened to him, if he maybe goes around to other bus-stops preying on girls like me, and if he does that, if they talk to him the way I did.

Because of my wonderfully dysfunctional family, I'm fully equipped to spot a liar from a million miles away. And I can confidently tell you that everything he said was a lie, except for his name, and his name is the only truth I fail to remember. Haha. We talked about the education system, English, what he was working as, where he was headed to... I could tell he was trying to come up with ways to impress me. He was rather eloquent enough, and it disturbed me to know that this man, maybe over the phone or on the internet, could pass himself off as a decent educated man.

"I'm doing an MBA."

"Oh? Really?" I said, "Where?"

"Oh you know..." he waved his hand, "One of those universities..."

"Which one?"

"One of the best."

How vague. What a lie.

I'm also wondering what he wanted from me. I could tell he was a very lonely person, and the brightness of his marble eyes and the animated way in which he engaged in a conversation with me- me a mere scrawny JC student without brains- convinced me that he had never been treated well. Well of course when your lips and cheeks are that red as though you put on make-up people are bound to run away from you, but without it, something tells me he was never given much respect. I wonder how he was like as a child, how he had spent his life, and if he had ever loved anyone before. It fascinates me as much as it induces sadness from me.

I'm thinking, and don't laugh, but I could easily be this guy, albeit the female version. In my loneliness and complete set of eccentricities I could wander aimlessly and try to fill my emptiness with a little bit of talk from strangers. I could try to waste my time away so I wouldn't have to sit down and focus on why my life is so screwed up. I could... I could... But mostly, I wonder if he's okay. I wonder if the world isn't so cruel to him anymore. If I might see him again one day, someone changed. And I wonder what he would say if I told him he had now become a figment of my imagination, someone with a painted mask for a face, who walks in and out of my mind when I'm bored and daydreaming, waiting for the bus to come.