I had ignored him so far, and assumed I could continue to do so. He stood a bit apart, left of the old backstop, well behind me...and I could catch a view of him in the reflection of my glasses if I wanted to. Or not: I chose instead to focus forward, paying no attention to him at all, and in fact to ignore the overt fact that I was ignoring him, pouring myself into the details of the Eucalyptus deglupta across the culvert.
But although I could fool myself, I could not fool him. Calmly, passively, and without any hint of intent, his eyes were fixed upon me like a bird of prey. I knew this without looking. It was a pencil-point touching my neck. We must have stood like this for a half-dozen cycles of the corner stoplights.
I redoubled my efforts to seem purposeless, to remain unaware and apart, my fists punched into the pockets of my pants. So focused was I upon this that I did not hear his approach, his soft old shoes nearly silent against the decomposed-granite playground. He was right there, just behind me, before I knew it.
He spoke. Suddenly, I remembered everything.
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A "tropism" is a literary form pioneered by Nathalie Sarraute in the first half of the 20th century. The idea is to capture a dramatic moment, usually wordless and without a clear plot, but with a sense of its richness and gravitas. To sense that something has happened without knowing precisely what (or, at least, this is my personal interpretation). They are also often used as writing exercises. I see them as a poetic form, rather than a prosaic one.
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