Paranoid Commuters

I had the most bizarre experience on the train thursday morning. Boarding the 9.01 express at Camberwell station I sat down opposite a middle aged man, suit-wearing and respectable looking, who was reading the morning’s paper. There was nothing particularly different about this scenario to any other train ride, except for the fact that I had been able to find a seat – a rare occurrence indeed. After a few minutes the man got up, apologizing as he bumped me on his way into the aisle, and sat down on the next row of seats over in front of a young Asian man with pond shaped metal framed glasses. He began talking to him, and I assumed they were friends. Retreating into my own world of headphone assisted music I thought nothing further of it until the song I was listening to ended. Suddenly I noticed a palpable sense of agitation and confusion amongst my fellow commuters. “You’re harassing me”, my former seat-mate stated to the young Asian man, in a remarkably measured tone.
“I’ve never seen you before in my life, sir,” the bespectacled one replied in a similarly even and nonplussed manner.
“Maybe you haven’t. But this is the same sort of treatment I’ve been subjected to for five years, maybe not from you, but from a wide network of people just like you”
The affable young man just smiled pleasantly.
“Sir, I don’t know what you are talking about, you are mistaken.”
“You’re stalking me,” the other continued, “This is harassment. I would like you to get off at Flinders St with me and talk to the police’
“I can’t right now, I have a meeting, but maybe later this afternoon.”
“Well, I can’t later this afternoon, I also have a meeting.”
The accused jotted down his mobile number of the man’s paper, promising he would be able to talk to the police later, and indeed, even seemed to relish the possibility. The train reached Parliament, where he got off, the suit man satisfied enough to allow him to leave, having drawn some sort of concession. It was a remarkably efficient negotiating process that belied the utter weirdness of the preceding conversation.

The obvious conclusion is to be drawn from this encounter is that middle-aged suit man is affected with some sort of condition that induces intense and unjustified paranoia. But who knows? Maybe there really is a vast network of people out there, following his every move, scrutinizing his every activity. A shadowy government agency perhaps, or maybe he owes somebody important money. Farfetched, sure, but a couple of things bothered me. If pond-shaped glasses didn’t know this seemingly disturbed soul, then why did he not seem more flustered? He seemed merely bemused, as if it were all in a day’s work. If I was in his situation I would have been thoroughly disturbed.

Still, it is without doubt the most bizarre exchange I have witnessed on public transport, and I have both seen and been part of many. I’ve been offered unsolicited tips on how to get on food stamps, and when, where and why to take acid - considered casual conversation on the Portland bus I was on I’m sure. I’ve been shown bullet wounds from gangstas and servicemen alike, one caused by South Central LA, the other by Iraq combat ---- but this well and truly takes the cake. In Melbourne, it takes mental illness or drunkenness to initiate these left-field encounters. The only time its acceptable to start a conversation with a stranger sober is if you are going to ask the footy scores. Anyway, it’s the ‘wide network of people’ that does it for me. That guy’s been watching the X-Files.