strangereality150

I was on my way to the hardware store to get some batteries for some reason (I forget precisely what). It was a nice day today and I felt happy.

A man aged about 60 years walked toward me. He was short, almost dwarf-like in stature. He wore an incongruous trilby-style hat, of the kind that nobody wears any more, and possibly never did wear outside of old films. Facially, he resembled Burgess Meredith in the Rocky movies: wizened, wrinkled, bulb-nosed, but tough-looking.

My eyes passed over him. My mind had already filed and forgotten him.

When he was almost level with me he stopped dead and spoke to me. “Lord Strange!” he said. “How are you?”

Life breeds certain instincts into one; city life in particular breeds specific, useful instincts.

“Hello,” I said without stopping. “Fine. How are you?”

“Good, good,” said the little man, turning his neck to watch me walk past. “It's a lovely day.”

“It's great,” I said. I hadn't stopped walking and was now far enough past to decently stop looking at him. Which I did. I went into the hardware store and got my batteries.

I had never seen that man before in my entire life. I have no idea who he was.

This kind of thing happens to me all the time.

Well, that's an exaggeration. It doesn't happen every day. Maybe once per year, or once every other year. I'll be walking along, minding my own business, and I'll be hailed by strangers who seem to know me.

The only plausible explanation is that in reality we are all somehow living backwards in time, and the strangers who so greet me are people I haven't met yet.