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Baker -> Come Again? (7/12/2009 21:21:34)
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He wandered back and forth, glancing around, clearly not comfortable sitting alone at the small table in this corner of the restaurant. Every few minutes, he sat down and pretended to eat his sparse meal of bread and purple grape juice before getting up again to refill a glass that remained empty. Unlike me – with my hamburger, fries, and large chocolate milkshake – this man resisted the delicious temptations around him, and seemed to have prepared a meal that wasn’t for himself.
Sitting in my chair, I wondered who in God’s name he was. I didn’t recognize him, and his ragged and threadbare clothing showed that he wasn’t prepared for the frigid winter outside. The red shirt hanging loosely off his slight frame was one of those tongue-in-cheek “Jesus Loves Me” t-shirts found online, and his khaki shorts and leather sandals completed an unusual outfit for this time of year. His long brown hair swung around his shoulders as he paced, looking uncomfortable, while his thick beard of the same color largely hid his pale skin from my sight. In short, he was remarkable because he seemed to have appeared here out of nowhere – an apparition from another time and place, perhaps – and he seemed to be waiting for someone, anyone, to acknowledge or recognize him. Looking down, I noticed a large puddle of water surrounding his table that he somehow kept walking through without noticing. I assumed his feet would get wet after a while, but, curiously enough, his feet remained totally dry. I watched him wear a rut in the floor for a while more before, afraid of being caught spying, returning to the meal in front of me.
After ten minutes of chewing and several more furtive looks at the bedraggled man in red, I finished my meal and began to stand and depart. As I stood, another diner rushed over to claim my table, the last open one in the restaurant. He quickly sat down in my seat, proclaiming, “Good lord, man, you’re my savior!”
Hearing this, my curious friend abruptly stopped his pacing and jerked his head to stare at the excited eater, a look of bewilderment on his face.
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