Stranger Study

Sketches (3 sentences each):

1) physical description
He is average. Average height, average weight, average looks by anyone’s judgment. His hair, the common shade of medium-dark, is an average length, and his eyes are an average brown.

2) movement
In the game of billiards, one is able to gather something about a person’s character. People calculate; he doesn’t calculate. He simply rests one hand on the table and hits the cue ball with the cue (always the same force, same motion), neither precise nor overly sloppy, never an extreme expression crossing his face.

3) insert me
I am explaining to him the law of centrifugal motion and he looks at me over the top of his sandwich from which he is taking a bite and nods, sets it down, nods. I ask if he’s understood what I’ve just said and he holds up an index finger to indicate that he’s chewing. So I scan the room as I wait and by the time he’s done and my eyes return, he seems to have forgotten the question and is taking another bite.