Writing: A Character

Finishing his cooled tea and a chapter of Walden he closed his book and pondered on the soaked bag of leaves sitting in his cup. He tried to imagine where they came from and what the farmers who harvested them looked like, and if Thoreau could subsist alone in the woods by growing his own food would he be able to do the same. He felt certain that he could; yet as soon as his conviction arose that inner voice, the same which has always drummed in him a lion's courage, also reproached him for dreaming of some way of life closed to him, and that he should improve on being a good son to his parents and a good man to his society instead of desiring a vagabond's life. To be sure this is what he has always wanted for himself, a self-reliance that seeks not the permission to live from other men, but like a beast fettered in a cage he does not know the way out and has come to learn through the passage of time that howling his grievances is futile; it rewards more to maintain an outward indifference while getting his regular fill to eat.

He tossed his preoccupation aside and left the cafe, but not before sliding the chair back under the table and returning his empty cup to the counter. For here is the sort of man who does not like to take up too much space in the world, and wherever he goes if he can afford he will keep his affairs as tidy as possible and put everything back in their rightful places when done. He disdains people who talk loudly over the phone in public areas as if the space were theirs to own, and frowns upon those who leave the tables a mess of bones and rice and spilt chili sauce after their meals. Yet for his ire he hasn't such tenacity as some to openly chide these anti-socialites. There was such an evening when he had to dine alone at a foodcourt, which was not uncommon to him at all, and most of the tables for two or four were taken except one large circular table for ten which usually caters to solitary diners. As he sat there carefully eating his bowl of noodle soup, making certain to minimise the splashes of soup resulted from loose strands of noodles sliding off the chopsticks and diving back into the bowl, he observed some nearby patrons dumping uncleared trays from their tables off at where he was seated, which from two quickly grew to ten, and this so greatly disturbed his otherwise peaceful mental frame that after he finished his food he reached across the table, slapped the trays into one neat pile and carried them across the foodcourt to the tray return area.