1.
The first time I encountered the "Creepy Camcorder Dude", I was thirteen years old.
I stayed out very late with my new friends and had needed to take the midnight train back home.
The train was relatively crowded, yet I had managed to find a seat. A few seats ahead of me, an old man with a moustache and a fedora stared intently at me as I sat down. Throughout the ride he kept turning his head towards me and staring me straight in the eyes. Each time he turned to look at me, the duration of his glare got longer and longer.
Finally, he got up to catch his stop. As he got up, he turned towards me. I saw that he had a large, black VHS camcorder, like one from the early nineties. He started to make a growling noise, like a dog, and gestured towards me with the hand that held the camcorder, as if asking me to join him.
Of course, I didn't follow him. Although, I always wondered where he was going, what was on the camera, what his job was, who his friends and family were and just how a person like that functioned in normal life.
For a couple of years after that, I would see him in various parts of town, although he never looked at me that same way again.
2.
This morning, right after I left my house.
The first place I visited was the stop where he got off. When I saw him get off of the train, I remembered seeing him take a turn to the left. I followed the street in the direction that he had taken.
There wasn't anything remarkable about this street in particular. It was pleasant, slightly removed from the noise of the city. The street was lined with white and pastel houses that had terracotta roofs and gardens filled with flowers. Every now and then, there was a small bakery on the corner of each intersection.
The air was slightly clearer here. I could see mountains in the distance, lining the horizon of the open blue sky. A group of children ran past me, chasing after a ball.
I would turn back after half an hour. The street yielded no information regarding the current whereabouts of the Creepy Camcorder Dude and I could not reconsile the existence of the Creepy Camcorder Dude within such an idyllic setting. I wanted to enter the environment that had shaped his mind and I was certain that these cracked, cobblestone streets would not lead me to such a place. After about a half hour of walking, I turned back towards the train stop.