One can always count on Nathan to do the wrong things when it matters most. Nathan lives in a perpetual virtual world in which he is the only occupant, or if there were others nearby, they were inconsequential. Nathan fails to rise to the occasion, in fact fails to rise to any occasion. He feels that unless it directly affects him negatively, he isn’t interested. But that changed one day when he was least expecting it. And when it hit him that he indeed lives in a world, a real world with others equally if not more brilliant and well educated than him, it knocked him flying. So much so, that to this day, and this incident happened about a year ago, people feel he has yet to get up from the ground. That’s how dramatic it was when he was least expecting it.

Allow me to introduce to you, one Jonathan Goliath Payne. Goliath! you ask in surprise and that was exactly my sentiments when I was first introduced to him.

“Goliath! Surely, you’re joking,” I said with as straight a face as I could manage.

“Why do you mock me?” he asked sounding arrogant, “that’s what my parents named me.”

“Oh no!” I replied in genuine surprise at his attitude, “I’m not mocking, just surprised.” And then I added a few more words to make me feel less like a giant. “I’ve never met a Goliath before. I thought Goliath meant you are something like 7 feet tall and not….” and here I stopped, offering him a chance to enter the discussion.

“And not five feet six?” he replied. I wasn’t sure if he was asking me a question or whether it was a rhetorical question not worthy of an answer.

“Yes exactly,” was my reply.

Not quite able to decipher what I meant by that reply he chose to drop the subject. “You can call me Jonathon.”

“Hello Jonathan, you can call me Nate.” I answered hoping to restart the conversation.

He agreed, “nice to meet you Nate and what do you do for a living?”

No nothing like you look nice who is your hairdresser or who dresses you in the morning, obviously not you because your clothes are well coordinated. No none of that. It was what do you do for a living?

What I have found out over the years is that when someone asks a question like that in the beginning, he has already assumed he can better you. If I said, ‘Oh I’m a rubbish collector,’ he would jump in and say well that’s nice but I’m a nuclear scientist. However, if he would ask me what rubbish I collected, I would immediately respond, ‘rubbish like you.’

But that’s not what happened. When he asked me what I did for a living, I answered correctly, “nothing, I’m independently wealthy and don’t need to work.” Well, you should’ve seen the expression on his face. It was obvious he had never met anyone like me and dreaded me asking him the same question. But of course, I had to. “And you?” I asked with a sense of genuine interest which judging by the expression on my face was false.

He replied, “I write for a living.”

“Write?” I asked, wishing to pursue this avenue that had magically just opened to me. “What is it you write?”

“On billboards,” he replied with the last half of the word losing itself in the wall behind him to which he had turned, looking for a way out of a conversation that he felt he wasn’t going to dominate and now knew the tide was washing over him. But I was astute and had good hearing. “Billboards?” I asked not really interested, but I love arrogant people and I love pinning them down.

“Yes,” was his one word answer.

“Oh, I’ve never met a billboard writer before. What is it you write on them?”

By the grimace on his face it was obviously the first time he had ever been slammed to the wall. He didn’t want to continue the conversation and therefore asked, “are you here by yourself?”

“No,” I replied, “my wife is with me.”

“Oh,” he sounded glad, “I’d love to meet her.”

“She wouldn’t like to meet you though,” I replied quietly, but not quietly enough.

“And why is that?” he asked.

“Because she doesn’t like billboard writers.”

“Well, I’m not a billboard writer in the professional sense,” he replied squirming slightly as his ploy had dropped like a lead balloon.

“Then in what sense?” I asked.

“Graffiti,” he replied.

“Graffiti?” I asked as if I hadn’t heard him properly.

“Yes, I write graffiti on billboards.”

“And you can earn a living like that?” I asked amazed by his answer.

“Yes, it’s art. I sell it.”

“Oh wow!” I was stunned by this narcissist. But to my amazement he had suddenly found his footing. I had inadvertently given him an opening and take it, he did.

“Yes, very much so. Some of my graffiti sells for thousands and if you go to any modern art gallery, you’ll see some of my artwork.”

I thanked him for handing me back the opening. “Would that be before or after the pile of bricks in the middle of the floor titled the end of civilisation?”

He had to leave. He just had to leave and leave he did. “Please tell your wife that my agent just called and I have a buyer for my latest art project.”

“Which one?” I asked but he was far gone by the time the last word of my sentence had hit his right ear.

“Hello darling,” I heard my wife call to me. I didn’t think she was close by.

“Hello Emily,” I replied, “I just finished a conservation with…”

“Yes, I know him Goliath Payne.”

“Goliath Payne? You know him?”

“Yes, he’s a very famous painter. You should’ve introduced me to him.”

“He scrawls graffiti. That’s hardly artwork Emily. I can do that.”

“It’s modern art,” continued my wife to my embarrassment, “and there is a school of art called Jungle Bunnies which he began.”

“Jungle Bunnies.” I repeated to myself under my breath. “Jungle Bunnies!” I said out louder when the words suddenly grabbed my brain in a vice like grip. Emily looked at me and smiled. “Have you heard of it?”

“No,” I replied, “I was stunned by such a stupid name for an art school. Here you have a scrawl, sorry a piece of art from the inventor of the Jungle Bunny school of art Goliath Payne, we are now open for bidding. 1 dollar someone shouts.”

My wife cut me off. “Don’t tell me you told him your stupid story about being independently wealthy did you darling?” I looked down at her shoes, “oh dear yes you did. The problem darling is that you live in the fantasy world where you’re the only occupant and can never be counted on to say the right things when it matters most. Who knows,” she continued, “I think he liked you at first. He may have offered you a job cutting out his artwork from the billboards and selling them.”

“I need a real job,” I replied.

“One that pays real money darling?” Emily continued in her condescending manner. “Hmm let me know when that happens, I’ll celebrate.”

As I was saying earlier, Nathan could never be counted on to say the right things at the right time or for that matter rise to the occasion when it matters most. I think I hear Emily calling me. Dinner must be ready. Cheers.