IT - Pieces in the Dark

Chapter 7 - Dual Perspectives

Chapter 7 -  Dual Perspectives

 

Once they had settled comfortably in their seats, holding their rods with the fishing lines out, Sam knew it was his lead to start the conversation.

He waited a few minutes to allow the ‘silent pause’ effect to sink in, to feel the environment, and be aware of the space. It was important to sense that moment of peace between them; it was a bloke thing. There was plenty to communicate, in silence, in the time before any words needed to be spoken.

It was a very difficult thing, trying to start a conversation on the spur of that moment, in that situation. Neither of them had ever met each other before, they both came from different cultures, had different lives, and knew very little of each other.

 Yet they were trying to broach a subject that they both knew was vast and complex, and had so many dimensions to it. With a situation like that, where do you start?

With men, of course, what ‘didn’t need to be said’, and the time taken not saying it, was as equally important, and as necessary, as that which did.

Unlike with women of course, he thought, where short spaces in the conversation were simply opportunities waiting to be filled. Just gaps in the conversation, that if went on too long, became uncomfortable, and ‘awkward.

Conversations between ‘blokes’ tended to be in series; sequential shared journeys, travelling from ’A’ to ‘B’ with many convenient stops along the way. Time was taken to reflect and take in what was said, and to also put those things in context, the view, and what was going on around them.

Women’s conversations however, always went off in many directions, down cul-de-sacs, did thirty-three point turns, worked in parallel, and had no plan or idea of where ‘B ‘might be, or even where ‘A’ was, and certainly no idea of how to get back there.

 Women would just form projections of consensus, using some form of magic, rather than a lateral sequential logical process.

Bizarrely though, both mechanisms achieved the same result; they were just different ways of getting to the end point. Both achieved the same objective, with just different ways of doing things and different perspectives and priorities along the way, with neither ‘side’ knowing how the other worked.       

Sam opened up awkwardly with a ‘rough history of his life’ thing; what he had done, achieved, studied and worked on. Essentially all the things that seemed important to him or what he thought may be of relevance to Max.

It was a little mentally exposing, but it seemed necessary somehow. He had to establish that he wasn’t an ‘idiot’, that he was successful professionally and wasn’t prone to ‘loony fringe’ thinking. Also that he wasn’t the ‘growing his hair long and wearing New-Age hippy clothes’ type.

He just laid his cards on the table, a little like a personal job interview, going through his résumé, all of who he was, and what he had done. He talked, uninterrupted, for about twenty minutes, which seemed a lot longer than it actually was, and when he had finished he felt a little more comfortable in that he had somehow established his credibility.

He then carried on talking for about half an hour, describing the ‘experience’ that had happened to him some years back, as best he could, and included by some of the key events that had gone on since then.

He covered some of the information, knowledge and answers to things that he had in his mind, but without going into too much detail. He didn’t expand on the things he wasn’t sure about. He just kept it all general, open ended, and left out what he didn’t know for sure.