A new day, new start. I decided that I will try to stop procrastinating and start to handle my business a bit more promptly from now on. First step, give the man from Around Da Block 3 his photo that I printed in the darkroom.

He lives two floors below me, so I went down the stairs and checked the right wing first and he wasn’t there. I checked the left wing and there he was far away, with his back turned walking off into the distance. The weather is getting better so he had no hat or coat on and looked a bit different.

I started to follow him. I pulled my cellphone out to mess around with the setting so that I can try and get a picture of him holding the print.

However, as I walked behind him I noticed that he can only use one hand which was used to hold his walking stick.

Plan B time. I turned the camera in to self portrait mode, held it as far away from myself as possible and tried to estimate if it was possible to get a picture of me and him together with me holding the print for him.

By extending my hand as far as possible there seemed to just about be enough space for both of us in the picture. So with a smile on my face and a foolproof plan I started walking faster so that I can catch up with him.

I approached him just as he was about to enter his house and said, “Good morning”.

I had the picture behind my back and pulled it out and showed it to him saying that I made a print of the photo from the other time for him.

He looked at me and said;

“Do not approach me again.”
“I do not want to talk to you and I do not want you to come near me.”

Shocked, I said,

“Do you remember me? We spoke a few weeks ago.”

He replied,

“I remember you. I don’t like you. You are evil. Evil!! Get away from me, I don’t want that (referring to the picture).”

He was speaking in English, and at the point of calling me evil he said I am “ousan” or “housan” a word that was definitely not English.

At this point he was really agitated and started using his walking to stick to signal me to go away.

I stood there frozen in shock and devastation for a few moments. The previous times I met him he spoke calmly, and kindly. This time though he was loud, agitated and hysteric. It was almost as if he was a completely different person.

I came back to the house feeling dejected and told my gf what happened and she said that there is a good chance that he is probably going senile and that I shouldnt feel bad since I didnt do anything wrong.

But damn.. I still feeling a bit of a sting to the heart lol. Not really a good way to start the day.

Any suggestions on what I should do?