Sometimes I'm a lucky bastard. A dogma of writing insists on putting the emphasis on showing rather than telling. For example, why telling that two people are in love when you can show them being cute. For a few months now, I've been sitting near a very interesting case at work. I've been slow to convince, but now I'm pretty darn sure that the new guy has issue. The mental kind of issues.
Like in anything, me and my colleague J have discovered the truth gradually. First of all, he was always the type of guy that wore sunglasses inside (I know, so '94 right?) It started with intrusions inside our conversations that became stranger and stranger as time passed by. As we tried to tiptoe around the problem of an intrusive co-worker, our deranged co-worker has started to blurb about any kind of subject in hope to find somebody to discuss with.
At first, I thought he was a very lonely person, trying to reach out in his clumsy way. Lately, his attempts at reaching out have became stranger and stranger. He kept me thirty, forty minutes after his shift (he finishes an hour before me), telling me stories about street fight, jumping bail in Canada and doing military service in France (things already don't add up). Mythomaniac? Maybe, but I don't think so, it's darker than that.
What I've learned this week is that he doesn't tell the same stories to each of his co-workers. Some workers he grew closer to got some more disturbing stories about sexual exploits and meeting with mysterious girls. First time I was hinted on a mental disorder is when I saw him going down the elevator at lunch time he had bicycle shorts, a bicyle vest unzipped...and nothing under.
Last Friday, he pulled one of his best episodes, he removed his shirt at his cubicle and told everyone to "keep it in their pants". There's basic understanding of society that keeps you from doing that...with...most...of the people. Not him. He stayed shirtless on his chair for a good minute or two, sounding like he was getting a blow job. Scary, I know.
