the lookers-on
‘What are you looking at, mister?’
The fifth man, who happened to arrive in front of the trade centre just then, asked the first man, who had been standing looking at something for some time. The first man turned to look at him, and the fifth man smiled back in a friendly way.
‘I don’t
know. I asked around, but nobody seems to know anything,’ the first man said,
pointing at the thing in question. It was some sort of object with a round
shape and a flat front, and it was placed on a stool against a power pole next
to the pavement. A piece of unbleached white muslin covered it and its selvage
almost reached the ground. A sign pinned to it stated: ‘…’
‘What can it be? Do you have any idea?’ the third man, who had arrived almost at the same time as the first, second and fourth men, turned to ask the second man with obvious curiosity.
‘I have been
thinking—’ the second man said without looking at him, as he stood arms folded
over his chest, a brooding expression on his face. The other persons around had
more or less the same posture.
‘It must be
something or other used as a kind of container,’ the third man ventured,
frowning as though he wasn’t confident in his own idea.
The fourth
man twisted his neck as he looked thoughtfully and chuckled as if he had just
thought of something funny.
‘If it’s
what you say, it shouldn’t be as tall as this,’ the fifth man argued in the
light of his own speculations. He was gazing at the puzzling object, and his
curiosity was steadily growing. In fact, he thought he’d ask to have a look
inside and then hurry back to the business at hand, but he hadn’t left. Each
and every one of the people who stood looking at the ‘…’ must have their own
destinations, yet it looked as though whatever they were staring at had the
mysterious power to monopolize their attention.
Despite the
bright sunlight, dark clouds were scattered all over the sky and kept most of
it out of sight. Some were so dark that they shielded the afternoon sun and
projected passing shadows. On the tarmac, cars of all makes kept honking loudly
and they whooshed by so fast you could hardly see them. The pedestrians passing
by the area stopped to look at the puzzling object. Some stopped and craned
their necks to gaze at it and when they saw it was ‘…’, they walked away. Some
women, after taking a look, fled the scene mumbling: ‘This is crazy!’ But
several persons stayed to look patiently and made all sorts of comments. The
expressions on some people’s faces indicated that they wouldn’t leave until
they knew what this was all about.
‘Let’s open
it!’ the third man said after making several wild guesses, but many didn’t
agree with his suggestion.
‘How could
we open it?’ the fourth man objected. ‘It says here that…’
‘Precisely!
We don’t know who owns it.’ The fifth man felt weak-kneed as he thought about
the owner of this mysterious object. He was growing stiff so he shifted his
posture. He had been standing there for several minutes, yet his doubts kept
bothering him.
‘If you don’t
touch it and open it, you won’t know what it is,’ the first woman said after
she had roughly figured out what was going on. She had arrived as the flood of
comments was at its wildest.
‘Touching it
won’t make any difference. They won’t allow us to,’ the fifth man turned in the
direction of the first woman, who stood holding bags bearing the logo of the
nearby department store. She smiled sheepishly and nodded in assent.
They all
stood looking at the puzzling object from a distance. None of them dared go
near it as if they were afraid it would blow up, although it was merely
something covered with a piece of cloth.
Some people,
who had nothing to do, kept leaving and coming back to watch the whole event,
because they were curious to know how it would end.
‘How about
smelling it?’ suggested the second woman, who was a friend of the first woman.
Her proposal didn’t go against the statement written on the sign pinned to the
mysterious object.
‘Yep, good
idea!’
This time,
several persons exclaimed and nodded in agreement with the suggestion made by
the second woman, but the problem was, who would volunteer to smell the object?
Dark clouds
kept gathering in thicker and larger formations and their shadow covered the
whole area. The din from the cars of all makes went on ceaselessly and a flow
of pedestrians walked up and down the pavement, some of them loaded with goods
they carried higgledy-piggledy. A man stopped by, craned his neck for a while, and
then grumbled to himself: ‘What’s all this about
anyway? There’s nothing there.’
Hearing
this, the fifth man, amazed by such a statement, turned to look at the man who
had spoken, then turned around to gaze at the mysterious object again. The
object was still at the same place.
‘Sure, what’s
this about anyway? There’s nothing there,’ the fifth man said to the back of
the man who had just left, prompting a peal of laughter among the lookers-on,
who had nothing better to do. The third man frowned in displeasure.
‘I suggest
you smell it.’ The first man gave the third man a pat on the arm, but the third
man shook his head and turned down the request, out of fear or embarrassment.
‘How about
you?’ The fourth man nudged the first man in the back, but the first man
stiffened in refusal. They all looked at one another in search of a brave man.
‘You?’
‘No.’
‘Then you?’
‘No way.’
‘So, it must
be you.’
‘You’d
better ask that man.’
‘What about
you?’
‘I’ve just
arrived.’
No one
volunteered to go and smell the mysterious object. Some lost patience with the
whole thing and just walked away, only to be replaced by new lookers-on.
Sunlight sifting through a gap between the clouds now struck the mysterious
object, and a vague shadow became noticeable under the cloth. They all
unwittingly lowered their heads and took a step or half a step forward, coming
to within two to three metres of the puzzling object, and they set about
scrutinizing it. Then speculations started once again, with the hope of being
right this time.
‘…’ the
first man said confidently, and he smiled broadly, feeling he had solved the
mystery.
‘Could well
be.’ The second man walked around the object, perusing it. As the sunlight
sifting through the rain clouds fell at an angle and got into his eyes, he
raised up his hand to shield them. Several persons imitated him, leaning
accordingly. They wanted to make sure it was ‘…’ as the first man had said.
After a thorough examination, some nodded in agreement but some looked as
doubtful as ever; some twisted their mouths; some stroke their chins pensively;
and some gazed up at the sky, which looked like it might rain any time.
‘It’s
unlikely. It’s too round, for one thing,’ someone shouted from the back.
‘It must be …
more than anything else,’ the fourth man ventured rather confidently.
‘I think we’d
better open it,’ the third man, who was younger than anybody else, blurted out
impatiently, as the watch on his wrist told it was nearly four in the
afternoon.
‘You can’t
do that. It says here it’s forbidden,’ the first woman interjected. At this
point, she shifted her hands, which were holding the bags with difficulty, to
the front of her legs. She must be feeling stiff and sore.
‘That’s
right,’ the second woman seconded.
‘It won’t
matter if we open it just a little,’ the third man insisted.
‘It wouldn’t
be right.’
‘Just a
peep.’
‘It would be
a breach of manners.’
‘We won’t
know what it is unless we open it, and that’s that. So, let me open it and see
what it is.’
The third
man, no longer listening to anybody, decided to walk straight to the mysterious
object. But as he was about to lift the cloth, there was a deafening clap of
thunder. He was startled, and so were the others. The rain, which fell almost
every afternoon in October, came pouring down as if the sky was leaking,
forcing the third man to hastily take shelter under the eaves of a building,
and so did everybody else who had been looking at the puzzling object.
The rain
fell hard and thick, forming a blurry white curtain in all directions and
hitting the ground as if it wanted to drive itself into it. In the twinkling of
an eye, the whole road was flooded.
The third
man wiped away the raindrops that had yet to soak through his shirt. He gazed
up at the absent sky, then mumbled resentfully: ‘Blasted
weather! It never rains but it pours.’ He looked at the mysterious object again,
but this time, only saw the stool. The mysterious object had disappeared! He
blinked several times, shook his head repeatedly and looked once again at the
stool. The mysterious object gradually reappeared, blurred at first, then as
clear as before… He looked once more at the thick curtain of rain… The object
had disappeared again! He was nonplussed. He remembered the words of the man
who had said ‘There’s nothing there’. But surely it couldn’t be. He must be the
victim of an optical illusion.
‘So, we’ll
never know what it was,’ the fifth man sighed in disappointment. Several
persons seemed to be sharing the same mood.
Everyone
still wanted to know what the ‘…’ name written on the sign actually meant.
Everyone
still looked at everyone else questioningly, but it was clear there wasn’t
going to be any answer. The first woman looked at her wristwatch and exclaimed
loudly, as if to signal she had found a suitable excuse for leaving.
‘It’s past
four already. We’d better go or we’ll miss the bus,’ she told the second woman.
The third
man blinked again, trying to collect his wits. Then he burst out laughing
humorously. ‘Go and open it now, fellows!’ he thought, then he turned to stare
at the first, second and fourth men. Everyone was standing still, completely
motionless.
The rain
began to dwindle and finally stopped falling.