Conversation Hijacking Energy Vampire

von Marcus Krug

We’re in the office. And I’m not sure how he’s managed to materialise right behind my chair. He’s just appeared out of nowhere. I know for a fact that behind me, he’s fiddling with his moustache. I saw him once, at his desk, when he was bored after staring at his fingernails that he massaged some wax into his moustache and then twisted the ends around his fingers.I turn around and the second he’s certain, he’s got my attention, he tilts his head slightly to the left. With his hands behind his back, he takes a bow while grinning like a moustached Cheshire cat, only, his mouth is closed.

“You’ve got questions, I suppose?” I ask him. He asks his question and I’m happy that this time it is something I actually know the answer to. But this doesn’t help. He won’t go away so easily.

Claire calls him “The Energy Vampire” and for Anikó he’s simply “The Hijacker of Conversations”. And he deserves them all, every single one of his names!

We’re done – his question’s answered. I tell him that I have to get back to my work; so I try to turn back to what I’m getting paid for. But as soon as I turn around, he drops one of his hands on the back of my revolving chair, preventing it from swinging around and me from getting back to work.

“You know, I’ve got these new brake pads,” he says “they are half as abrasive as the ones you usually get from the manufacturer. But they want twice as much for them, now.” Still not back at my desk and actually turned a bit away from him, I just ask “For the motor bike?”

I’ve opened the fucking box! Now he talks and talks and talks – very fast, through his clenched teeth, only his lips are moving. He always does that. This makes it enormously difficult and takes a lot of energy in the effort to follow his thread of conversation and puts the chance of taking part in it even closer to zero. Shredded snippets like brake pads, bike chains, engine oil, indicator light bulbs and paint preservatives – all is coming out of Pandora’s Box!

At some point, he’s doing all the talking – still standing very close to my desk – and I’m back at the computer, doing my stuff. I hear him like a background noise. After almost ten minutes I know, he won’t let go of me. So I think, I might as well just have a break.

When I turn around and get up from the chair, I can see his right hand pushing something into his trousers’ pockets. A tiny round tin box is showing in the pocket. He is wearing worn out leather motorcycle boots, denim trousers which are kept in place by a belt with a large wolf for a buckle, and a lumberjack shirt. When I look up at his face, both of his hands are twirling his moustache while he’s still talking to me. I go and get some tea. He follows me.

In the coffee corner, I put a tea bag in my cup and there he is again, with his Batman mug – the two wings for handles. He must have changed the topic of the conversation on the way out here, because now it is Trevor he’s going on about. He tells me, how in the first level, you have to kill your boss and then bang his girlfriend.

He lifts his cup – both wings between thumbs and middle fingers – and sips from his tea. I am a sociable person, but here I act a bit unwise. “What’s the game, you’re talking about?” I hear myself asking, but then it’s already too late. The sluice of his dam of words has fully opened and out comes stuff I really don’t want to know. “Grand Theft Auto!” he exclaims, starting a lecture on this apparently amazing game. But I’m too weak to say something or simply turn away, he clipped my wings of free will by sucking all my energy dry – like the vampire he is.

His moustache is moist from the tea and needs to be brought back into shape. So he takes a napkin from the dispenser and daps the tea drops from his heavy facial hair. Then he pulls out the tin box. Opens it and applies the wax to his moustache. Satisfied, with a broad smile on his face, he twists the ends of his moustache around his fingers, rejoicing.

Since this didn’t cause him any disruption, he goes on with his lecture while positioning himself constantly between me and the door to the office – no matter where I move. He’s doing this subconsciously while he talks and fiddles with his moustache.

Behind him a colleague passes by, a very sad and compassionate smile appears on her face before she disappears through the door into the office. I raise my eyebrows and my annoyance shows on my face. But he keeps talking and is so immersed in twirling and twisting his moustache that he doesn’t even notice – completely absorbed in himself.

Out of the blue I ask him “What’s the wax you use for your moustache?” His smile broadens and he fumbles and digs in his pocket for the tin box. By the time he’s finished, I am gone.