A Serious Man

Let me tell you about a man I know.

I know a serious man.

Well, I don’t know him. In fact, I don’t even know where he came from.

But I’ve been seeing him a lot lately.

He looks oddly familiar, like someone I used to know, but haven’t seen in years. Have you ever run across a high school classmate on Facebook, and had a moment of cognitive dissonance as you try to connect the face you see on screen to the frozen-in-time image of a face still lodged in your mind? He’s like that for me. Familiar, almost eerily so, but I just can’t put my finger on how I know him.

He looks a little bit like my dad, even.

I see this man all over town. I catch glimpses of him near my office or at the grocery store, and even on (increasingly) rare occasions out at a restaurant. He shows up in windows and on security cameras—heck, sometimes he’s in my rear-view mirror. It’s almost like he’s following me around, though I can’t imagine why.

I don’t think we have much in common, you see.

He’s a serious-looking man, the kind who dresses like he feels l…