art, life, all look same

I don't remember the saying exactly ("art mimics life" or vice versa or replace one of those with "nature"...) but sometimes I feel like I'm living in a movie.

That's not an unusual thing for someone to say. Usually it has to do with a lot of drama happening at once from work, family, inner dialogue, all at once or funny coincidences, or most likely, a lot of relationship issues are happening, and life feels like a telenovela, minus the bad dramatic chords.

But yesterday I felt like my life was like an indie movie short. One of those without elaborate dialogue, and are just clips and glimpses from life.

There's this guy, grey hair, always in a Popeye's uniform, and his name tag says "Floor Manager". (Somehow I don't remember his name.) But I actually didn't notice this right away.

Clip 1: (June 2007)
Shopping in Safeway a little less than a year ago shortly after moving. In the produce section I wander away from my cart (which is manned by a neighbor who I was shopping with) and go to the lettuce. A man with grey hair and slightly on the heavy side stature stands with a lettuce head in either hand. He has a name tag on. I assume he works at Safeway since I didn't read that it said something else. (But that wouldn't be in the movie clip 'cuz there's no inner dialogue!!!) Anyway. He starts muttering to me/himself...unclear. Talks about being a manager at I guess it's Popeyes in retrospect. He mumbles more about something someone said to him and he kept repeating "I'm the *mumble* manager. I know better than you." after a few sentences. The little spritzer that keeps the veggies looking fresh comes on. "Ooh free shower," he says. He proceeds to put his arms in the mist and sighs in the relief from the hot weather. Meanwhile I don't know whether to make an escape or keep talking to him. Eventually I talk to him about baseball and he starts to apparently speak "normally". But he reverts. I escape at some point.
My neighbor and I comment to each other how crazy he is.

Clip 2: (April 2008)
I see the man in his Popeye's uniform on the metro station track. He looks lost and confused as he did at our first meeting long ago. I look on from a small distance away, as if I'm ready to protect him from anything that might come his way.

Clip 3: (May 2008)
I see him at Popeye's behind the counter at Popeyes in Old Town. He's not doing anything per se...not cooking, not working the register. I guess he's managing the floor...
(Reminds me a bit of "I am Sam" with Sam working at Starbucks actually. Ugh, that movie made me so sad and angry and I only watched the first 15 minutes.)

Clip 4: (June 11th 2008)
I see him asleep on the bus, exhausted. In his Popeye's Chicken uniform, name tag on. Konked out. Since I saw him at the metro that other time, I assume he missed his stop since this was past the metro stop. Not sure what to do. I leave him be.

Well the indie movie short isn't over I s'pose. There has to be something to tie it all together to make you think...
Maybe he'll wake up at the last stop on the bus and something terrible happens and it'll be in the papers and I should've woken him up? (In reality, the bus ends at another metro stop one station away, so I'm sure he'd work things out.) Maybe I see his obituary a few months later, and somehow it'll say something really mean like "_____ always seemed to go through life completely unnoticed, but he loved his life and worked hard anyway" and then the movie would go back in time to the other times I saw him and I'd make friends with him and he'd be a happier guy. Or he'd own the Popeye's franchise one day and I'd see him in the news that way. I don't know how it'll end. Maybe it won't. Sometimes I miss the short before the movie because I'm buying popcorn.