It took me three weeks to notice that most of the people in my new neighborhood were completely insane. I’m not quite sure why it took so long for me to notice this. I guess one gets wrapped up in the inanities it takes to move into a new house. There’s the packing, then the housework, the painting, the rebuilding. All of these things can occupy a person to the point where even the most obvious of things are still hidden.

For instance, there was an old man who lived on the corner of my block. His purpose in life seemed to be reduced to one ridiculous task. He has hell-bent on cutting down a small pine tree on his front lawn using only the handle of a large metal spoon. Well… actually… this isn’t completely correct. The act of rubbing a thin piece of metal against a piece of hard wood will undoubtedly eventually wear that piece of metal down. A more accurate description would be that he was trying to cut down the tree using the handles of many large metal spoons.

A while ago a friend of mine told me that by walking one mile a day will greatly decrease your chance of a heart attack. By keeping your body active, you keep every cell on alert; keep your blood flowing at a good rate. I wasn’t sure how true this was, but since I was a borderline hypochondriac (Ever since my Aunt Grace told me that Death resided in every particle on Earth), I decided to give it a try. I didn’t feel any healthier, but I did find that I enjoyed the quietness, the peacefulness of the walks. So they became a regular routine of mine.

It was on one of my walks when I first saw the old man in his lawn chair next to the tree. There was a sign behind him, hand painted, that read, “Fate is a four letter word.”

He had his own routine as well. He would drag the handle of the spoon against the tree, then pick up his notebook and take down a note. It turns out that this whole endeavor was for some sort of world’s record, and the man was very anal about taking down every detail of the process: The date, the time, the weather conditions, and most importantly the number of strokes he had made. He would then put the notebook down and press his palm against the tree, seeing if it was ready to give. When it wouldn’t give any, he would pick up the spoon and drag it across the bark again.

Apparently he had been up to this for more than three presidencies.

Three blocks down the road there was a woman who made it a point to grab a broom, run off of her front porch, and scream, “All of you damn kids get off of my lawn!” This is a normal suburbanite activity, especially for the older and senile. The thing that made this odd was that this was not an old and senile woman. She was maybe thirty years old. What made it even odder was that there were never any kids on her lawn. She just managed to do this every half-hour or so. It goes without saying that she was mentally unbalanced. The sad part is that she wouldn’t be in the shape she was if it wasn’t for the love of her parents.

When she was ten, she first showed signs of delusion and mild schizophrenia. Instead of taking her to a professional though, her parents decided to ignore the problem. To this day, they had not taken her to any doctors to see about getting help for her. They were so wrought with denial that they would tell friends and family that this was normal behavior for her. They told their friends and family that she was just creative. Always imagining…

There was also a pair of traveling musician brothers who walked to work every day. These two men were not necessarily weird, not in an extreme sense. They were both illegal immigrants who barely spoke any English. In fact, to say they spoke English at all was generous. The only English they knew were in the titles of songs. One brother played the guitar and sang. The other brother played accordion and never sang, for he was the shy one (The George Harrison of the band I suppose). They didn’t own a car, let alone any legal documentation. They seemed to enjoy the walks anyway, playing songs all the way. They would play the most heart wrenching version of “Send Me an Angel” you have ever heard.

They also wore matching cowboy boots and hats. I guess that’s kind of weird.

The only person who intrigued me in a way that was not coupled with horror or confusion was the girl in the car. Every morning during my walks I would see the girl in the car driving to work. She looked normal enough: Brunette hair, blue eyes, fair complexion. She wasn’t the definition of beauty (At least by today’s standards), but she was definitely appealing in that way you can’t quite put your finger on it.

I never talked to her, partly out of the fear of rejection, partly out of the knowledge that most modern women carried mace and are not afraid to use it when a stranger approaches their car. Every morning I would see her drive by and I would think about waving to her, but instead would quickly look to the ground or stare at the man with his over-sized metal spoons.

The notion that there are two sane people in an insane world is not a new one. It’s one that has been reviewed, dissected, picked apart, and left for dead. I really had no way of knowing if this girl was just as eccentric as the others, but part of me told me that she wasn’t. If I could just get over the hump of introducing myself, everything else would fall into place. I was sure of it.

But she continued to drive by. And I continued to stare at the ground.

Scientists say that the sky will eventually collapse into itself. The world go completely insane. Up will be down. Now will be then. Nothing will make sense. I believe that it has already happened, it’s just taking it’s time to creep up on us. When I take a look at the people that I am surrounded by, I have to wonder what kind of orderly world could produce such chaotic creatures.

But sometimes these chaotic creatures provide some purpose. I walked down the street, all of these thoughts going through my mind. The girl in the car started to pass by. My eyes immediately averted to the ground. I started walking faster, trying my hardest not to look at her. I concentrated on the sound of her car approaching me. In a moment, the car would be right next to me, and the girl would be gone again. Every morning I would lose her.

This morning, however, as the sound of her car got closer, a crunching sound seemed to join up with it. Before I knew what had happened, there was a crash as something large fell in front of me. Metal could be heard, bending and groaning under great pressure. I still didn’t look up, but I knew what I would see if I did. I would see that a large tree had fallen into the road. I would see the old man jumping up and down excitedly, writing down notes as fast as his hand would let him. I would see the girl in the car staring blankly at the large tree that had crushed in the hood of her car.

But I just stared at the ground, listening closely. The girl suddenly let loose with a current of curse words that had to be heard to be believed. And it wasn’t particularly vulgar either, at least not coming from her mouth. I smiled to myself a little, remarking how her voice would jump up different octaves, depending on what word she said. Shit was the lowest, damn the second highest, fuck the third, and so on. Her voice became a rollercoaster of trembling squeaky cuss words.

I looked up from the ground and at the girl. She had gone from cussing to laughing now. She glanced over and our eyes met for the first time. She smiled and shook her head in disbelief. I just shrugged. To me, it wasn’t necessarily the oddest thing I had seen in the week.

The brothers walked by, playing a song I didn’t know, but they played it masterfully. The woman chased the invisible kids off of her front lawn. The old man ran inside of his house, eager to contact the world’s record people. On his way, he bumped into the sign that was behind his chair, the one about fate. Sometimes fate is a bunch of chaos in the right place at the right time. Sometimes fate is a tree falling in the middle of the road.

And sometimes fate is a stream of four-letter words.