Not Just a Number

Not Just a Number
Ros Thomas
The Weekend West
Published: Saturday May 2, 2015

The train doors hissed open. I stepped aboard and sat on an empty bench as we glided out of the station.

Opposite me, a decrepit old fellow was sprawled on the carriage floor, sorting his stash of grimy shopping bags. A long bulbous nose gave him an air of Jimmy Durante, minus the felt homburg. His long beard was a tangle of white wisps. A red-checked parka and black tracksuit pants, the knees peppered with holes, did little to pad his raw-boned frame. The soles of his black sneakers had worn down to reveal threadbare socks and a glimpse of grubby feet. He gave me a sly glance with one bloodshot eye.

With arthritic fingers, he peeled open a plastic pocket and slid a collection of small sugar packets into one hand. I watched, fascinated, as he laid them end-to-end, domino style. With a grunt, he swept up the sugar packets and lined them up like soldiers instead. Satisfied, he reached for another plastic sleeve.

A dozen fag-ends dropped onto the carriage floor. He examined each for drag-worthiness before placing them in rows, biggest to smallest. I noticed his hoard also contained one green lemon and a collection of worn elastic bands, neatly parcelled in rings.

The intercom announced my station. I stood up. “Bye,” I said as an afterthought, but his head remained bowed. I wondered where he was going.

At dawn the next morning, I set off on my bike ride. The low-slung clouds threatened rain. On a whim, I abandoned my usual river route for the bike path that hugs the far side of the railway line. At the level crossing, I waited as the express thundered past in a silver blur. Clattering over the tracks, I swung into the cycle lane, almost colliding with a mound of dark blanket and a pile of shopping bags. It was the homeless man from yesterday. I couldn’t believe it!

He was stretched across the path, propped on one elbow, classifying another collection of sugar packets.

“You’re going to get run over” I said gently. He strained to move into a sitting position. “That’s better” I said, as he slumped against the railway fence, clearing the bike path. He drew his various gubbins towards him and resumed grading his sugar straws. I didn’t know what to say.

“Thank you,” I murmured as I pedalled away. He stayed in my thoughts the whole ride.

Later that morning, two suburbs from mine, I rounded a corner to go to the post office. There he was again, sunning himself on a bench, still cataloguing his detritus.

“Hello,” I said. “That’s three times I’ve seen you since yesterday!”

His head jerked upwards. He eyeballed me but said nothing.

“Is it nice in the sun?” I said, faltering.

He murmured something I couldn’t hear.

“I’m going to the shops,” I said, pointing across the road. “Can I get you anything?”

“Apples,” he muttered.

“Apples? Okay. Back in ten minutes. Will you be here?”

He gave me an affirmative noise.

As I trundled my trolley up the aisles, I decided our third meeting was a coincidence too remarkable to dismiss. Had this homeless man entered my life for a reason? I felt intrigued, then rattled. Were our lives somehow fated to intertwine? What was I supposed to do for him?

The pragmatic quarter of my brain intervened. Coincidences are inevitable, I reminded myself. Why invent a reason to make these chance meetings meaningful? We had merely stumbled across each other by a quirk of timing.

I remembered back in 2001, being completely absorbed in one of the conspiracy theories after 9/11. The date had become noteworthy because 9/11 (9 plus 1 plus 1) equalled 11, and American Airlines Flight 11 was the first to hit the twin towers. There were 92 people on board (9 plus 2), and Sept. 11 was the 254th day of the year (2 plus 5 plus 4). There were 11 letters each in ‘Afghanistan,’ ‘New York City’ and ‘the Pentagon.’ The World Trade towers themselves took the form of the number 11.

Everyone I told about this pattern marvelled at the parallels. Later, I read that the number 11 sequence wasn’t actually an existing pattern. It was merely a pattern that conspiracy theorists had found. I chastised myself for being so gullible. And yet here I was again, trying to force significance upon three random encounters with a stranger.

I gathered my shopping and walked out of the supermarket, a bag of red apples in my free hand. The bench was empty. I scanned the street but there was no old man with wavy white hair and tartan-parka. I parked myself on the bench and waited for several minutes, perplexed. But he had gone. Why had we met? Luck of the draw, I guess.

The Next Best Thing

The Next Best Thing
Ros Thomas
The Weekend West
Published Saturday June 1, 2013

Here’s my conspiracy theory: today’s gadgets are made to fail. And here’s my evidence: both the vacuum cleaner and my mobile phone have carked it just weeks out of warranty.

Last Sunday, the vacuum cleaner, my trusty servant, stopped dead. The two of us were having a lovely time sucking up all the bits of Lego left lying on the loungeroom floor. (We often play games, the vacuum cleaner and I, ferreting about under the sofa with the suction at warp speed. We try to guess from the rattle – rattle – clunk! what mystery object has shot up the hose.)

Always noisy and frolicsome, my appliance was suddenly still. All I could hear was a faint ticking. I rolled its body into the recovery position, ripped open the lid and shook the bag resting limply inside. I smacked the machine shut hoping to restore its noisy breath. Nothing. I squinted up the hose to see if its airway was blocked but I had an interrupted view of the front door. I emptied the dust filter and pumped the on/off switch with a firm but steady rhythm but by now its body was cold.

I had just enough time to race to the electrical shop before it closed. I burst through the door, my expensive Italian clutched in my arms, dribbling fine grey dust from its back end. The bloke behind the counter took one look and said: “We’ll have a crack, luv, but now that it’s out of warranty, the drop-off fee is $85 and we charge $65 an hour labour which doesn’t cover parts so it might be cheaper to buy a new one.”

I got the feeling he knew something I didn’t: my two-year-old vacuum cleaner was built notto last. It had what Choice Magazine calls “planned obsolescence.” I felt like a chump. Here I was thinking my vacuum and I had a future together, and it was secretly planning career suicide. I forgave the betrayal and begged the electrician: “I need to know what went wrong, if you can’t fix it, I want an autopsy.”

The very next day, my mobile phone crashed in sympathy. An inky blank screen stared back at me. Somewhere inside it were the phone numbers of everyone I know. I went to the Apple store, a place so technologically advanced the geeky staff look uber-cool in their coke-bottle glasses and identical blue polo shirts. Customers, depending on their age, look either confused or euphoric at the smorgasbord of technology laid out before them. At the door, the maitre d’Apple fiddled around with my phone for a minute then suggested: “Time for an upgrade?” I tried to look euphoric but he sensed my confusion.

“Did you back it up ma’am?” He already knew the answer so I replied guiltily: “Please tell me you can restore it? My social life lives inside that  phone.”

 “Well, if it can be fixed, it’ll take a couple of weeks. But your screen is cracked  and iPhone 4s are pretty outdated now….”

“Okay, okay” I interrupt, “I get your drift.”

Mobile phones aren’t meant to be repaired, they’re meant to be upgraded. Superseded by something a little thinner or a little longer so that the charger and the three covers you have at home no longer fit.

I can’t get used to the idea that TVs and computers and cameras that are working just fine should be replaced simply because a newer version comes along. It makes me feel gluttonous.

My mother had her Hecla toaster for nearly 30 years. It had doors that flipped down and it never complained no matter how thick the toast we stuffed in it. In Mum’s day, broken things were fixed by a generation of menders and make-doers with tweezers and soldering irons. My eldest, 12, is a whizz at building contraptions, but already, he loves to trade up his gear. How many pairs of headphones are enough? Will Playstation 3 be embarrassing once Playstation 4 arrives?  

There was nothing terribly wrong with my vacuum cleaner, as it happens, it just had a worn belt. The repair cost me $160 but we are reunited. Now  I know my two-year-old Italian is past its prime. 

My new phone, however, has been greeted with much excitement by the small members of the house. It’d be even more exciting if I knew the phone number of someone to call, but for now, the phone and I are just a lonely little twosome with lots of fancy icons. My iPhone 5 is so advanced it has a genie inside it called “Siri” who listens, comments and does whatever I say. “Call Chelsea Pizza” I demand, and she finds the number and dials it. “Siri, are you my friend”, I ask her, as the kids guffaw.

“I am not just your friend” she replies in her husky robotic voice, “I am your new “B-F-F.” The kids are now hysterical. I quietly explain to Siri that the vacuum cleaner and I were once “Best Friends Forever”, but we fell out over some Lego.