the story of the illusionist, part two

it only takes me minutes to read the entire letter, but as i leave the coffee shop, there was already no sign of horace. i check every time, but he always manages to run faster than i read. if his letters weren't so cryptic, i would skim the letter and then rush out the door to watch him flee from nothing.

horace tries to keep a routine to our meetings, and whenever he feels the need (or desire) to meet up, he would set the meeting to the upcoming first sunday night of the month. if i was busy that night, i would have to wait until the next month. it feels like he is training me to clear every first sunday night of the month. and it's definitely working, because i'm no longer missing our meetings. our next meeting is a month from now, so i have more than enough time to think about his letter and what i want to say to him next time.

since there is such a long break between the next time i see him, that gives me some time to tell you how i met horace. judging from what you know about horace, you would never guess where i met him.

i met him at a party.

it was at a place of socializing where i met the reserved horace. a friend of mine had invited me over to his place for his farewell party. he was preparing to leave the country to work, and wanted to have one last party with all his friends before he had to leave. there were some people that i knew, but a lot that i didn't. i said my fake hi's to people passing by while looking for a familiar face to talk to. i found my friend mike and started some menial small talk. but even when i'm talking to people i know, i tend not to give them my full attention. instead, i give direct eye contact to the person periodically, while looking around the person for other interesting things.

so while i alternated between the face and the food table, the house decor, the unknown people talking and laughing and yelling, what was on TV, the grey striped cat trying to get its head under the sofa, i noticed the only person sitting on the sofa not talking to anyone. i continued to spy on him while discussing the complexities of the green energy industry. he looked both comfortable and out of place at the same time. he fiddled with his empty plate of food not with discontentment nor satisfaction. he didn't look for potential people to talk to because i saw that he didn't care. did he not care to talk, or did he not care about the people? i couldn't tell. but whichever it was, i saw at least that he couldn't decide between sitting and standing by the way he fidgeted in his seat.

another thing i also noticed was that he too was looking around. his head wasn't darting around like a parrot, so it took me some time to see his eyes resting on various parts of the room (also relieved that assuming i look around the same way, that i don't look like an idiot). the fact that he was doing the exact same thing as i was astounded me. it was at that moment when he made eye contact with me. if i wasn't looking directly at him already i would have missed it. but the way he looked at me felt like he just said something to me, but i didn't know what. i wanted to know what.

i excused myself from my current conversation and began to walk to him. immediately my tongue dried up and my mind raced for suitable small talk to start off. but seeing we had the one thing in common, i decided to take a risk and see if we had one thing more: hating small talk.

"you see anything interesting?" i asked.
"i haven't, but you apparently have," his voice smooth but monotone.
"you noticed me looking around?" i was a bit surprised.
"like how you noticed me looking around." he was terse. he was to the point. he made sure his words said more than they appeared, as if more words would cost him.

no one has ever noticed me look around before. i did it so well.

"do you look around all the time?"
"i listen too. from listening to you talk, i knew you would come over." he listened to me talk to mike.
"how did you know that?"
"because i think you and i are the same kind of person. we are both people that only talk about important things, only to the people that are important. i can hear that that guy wasn't important to you." he was right and i was embarassed.

"my name is victor."
"horace."

we talked some more, but i started getting the feeling that even with me, he did want to talk for long. i got the message and we exchanged contact information. his willingness to exchange information meant that he had a lot he wanted to say. but we did not talk for the rest of the night.

some weeks later, i gave him a call. he demanded a place and a time. and he said he wanted to meet the first sunday of next month. it was the middle of january. i was confused as heck but i didn't argue. and we've been meeting ever since. of course we also started doing the letter thing.

i can't wait to ask him what's the deal with him being an illusionist.