A man came up to me, one summer’s day and asked, “You there, what do you make of yourself?”

Imagine my reaction, (and I’m really asking you to) at how baffling that statement was. So I say to him, “I’m made up of a lot of things.” Just to feign I knew what he meant.

He puffed at me with a curious look (as if he had the right to) and explained it to me as if I were a child.

“No boy!” (And yes I am a boy) “I do not mean what you are literally made of. I mean to ask who you are?”

Hunyo de Mayo, (or June of May, and yes it does not make sense) but I didn’t give him that. And why would I? Why should I? A strange man who I haven’t met asked for my name? Though, how else would someone know a name without asking?

“If I told you my name was Bob,” I asked him. “Would you believe me? Even if my name was Keith.”

“I would perhaps.” He replied. “Why would I believe otherwise?”

Because it was a lie? But I’d suppose he knew it to be so but still would accept it as truth. Curious fact that one. That a name is as real as we make them to be. Even a name with numbers is fairly acceptable. I should have gone with that, with something more clever.

He slammed me again with another weird question of his, “Do you have any interest?”

Of course, I do. But what do I say to someone I just met or someone I may never meet again? To give some information that, to him, would be stagnant. An information that is everything but. Though, why he would be curious about it? Maybe to see if our taste intersect? For is it not comforting to know? That you may share something, a common experience perhaps, with someone. Even if you haven’t met that someone.

“Chances are high, that we share a common interest if that’s what you are asking. ” I proposed. “Either you take that as we being friends or foe is up to you.”

“Forsooth, such an answer I seek.” He said to me with heartfelt sincerity. A quirkiness he might felt it lends himself charming. But such archaic language only helps in his creepiness.

Though funny how words change, I thought to myself, that you could age someone by their usage of it. And an inevitable fact that all things would age. Even an intangible concept such as a word. So goes for a work of literature, I supposed. But if they age, wouldn’t they die? Considering too, those that are intangible? For is it not true that if a word dies, goes out of vogue, the idea still remains? A word to be replaced by another, encompassing that very same idea? And if this is true, in the world of the intangible, would it be the same for the tangible? That authors transcend to be ideas? A memory perhaps. Even if the author is forgotten.

But that’s the joy of literature, right? And why an author writes. That caged are we in this mortal realm, doom to one day cease. But of love and life, of wrath and death, the very concept still remains. That of friends or foe, to even strangers perhaps could feel the very same thing. Might just be an odd thought, from a fool such as I.

“An answer for a question, if it fancies you? Quid pro quo.” I said to him. Though, I tremble at the thought of what he would give. “Either as friend or foe I ask you this, would you cast away of any that happen? What need of you for information such as this?”

He smiled at me. A sinister smile. A smile that slowly shook and sent shivers throughout. I held my breath as I saw him gaped his nasty maw to say.

“Curiosity lad. Simple curiosity. But ‘tis not me I’d introduce. But the idea of me. The me who stood with you this fine summer’s day. The me who’s a curious quirky quack with quite the queer questions. The me who would be noth but a memory. For I have not introduced myself as you did, Bob.”

He then snickered at me with a devilish grin. A grin that almost frightened me. As though he came up with a clever idea to expunge all my secrets.

“You told me a lot today without telling me any.” He said. “And you told me quite enough.”

Now, what did he mean by that? How can someone give nothing and yet something? Is an absence account for a presence? Or is that something the very concept of nothing?

I didn’t know. And I didn’t bother to know. Something about him compelled me to sprint away. And that something was definitely not nothing. Without uttering another word, I left that man right where we met. With only the information I gave. And for them, that information will never change. A simple memory. Just as he was to me. It was a curious summer’s day. Curious still was what I wrote. As curious as leaving this in a biography.