There was this guy, and he was naked. Every time I saw him; naked. Naked as the proverbial jay bird. Of course, the only time I saw him was in the changing room at the gym, but well, he had elevated nakedness to a level that rose above simply not wearing clothes. He was, well, NAKED. He was the Colossus of Rhodes of nakedness.
Bear in mind that this is a men's changing room, and therefore full of partially clothed guys wandering around generally making the place look untidy. To stand out, as he so obviously did, required a commitment to nakedness that goes beyond mere happenstance. There was a willful, defiant nakedness to this man; he was a maverick, an untamed mustang of nakedness, pawing the ground above the herd of towel-clutching feet-shufflers like myself.
I went into the changing room one day and found the naked guy, or rather, "The Naked Guy," striding around, head held high and, as we would say in England, Tackle Out. I changed, went to do a workout and forgot all about it. When I return, some fifty minutes later, he was still there and STILL NAKED. Yes, I suppose it's possible he also went somewhere and did something in the time interval, but frankly, I doubt it. You see, this man was blow-drying his hair, gazing in the mirror and still unrepentantly in the buff. His nakedness was a statement, a defiant fist hurled into the face of conventionality.
Normally of course, I wouldn't care whether the other people in the changing room were dressed or not, but well, Naked Man also represented something of a navigational hazard. Remember, this isn't someone quietly getting dressing in a corner, huddled against the cold but reassuringly unyielding wall of lockers. No. This is a man striding about the room with mystifyingly purposeful nudity. It was like being in the presence of a biblical prophet; shaggy bearded and pale flesh and crazed eyes. All he needed was a handful of locusts and a staff. He would suddenly leap to his feet and rush across to the mirrors, examine himself and then slip into what I can only guess was some kind of fugue state while the rest of us had to shuffle and cough and inch past.
"Excuse me. Thanks. Just coming through... Whoops. Sorry. Sorry."
It was like doing a weird kind of line dance, with the participants all middle-aged men in towels, funneled down the safe passage that Naked Man had left unoccupied.
Perhaps in the end the strangeness of it all was shared. Sure, it was a little odd to spend so much time unnecessarily undressed, but perhaps my view of it as 'unnecessary' is as telling as his love for it. Who should care? The language of his lunacy was just so much wobbling beer gut. For me, it was a vague discomfort, not at his undressed state, but at the fact that _he_ didn't feel bothered by it. I'm never comfortable undressed in public and I like the world to be as neurotic as me, you see.
On the other hand, I suppose it's nice to bump into people who are just a little odd, now and then.
Alas, I've not seen Naked Man for along time. Still, I know he's out there somewhere, pink and scrubbed and causing an obstruction, in a reassuringly selfless way.