I went in a restaurant, to have coffee and a light breakfast this morning and catch up on some emails I needed to answer.

Shortly after sitting down a fellow came in and they seated him facing me in the next booth. Immediately he started talking to me. Mostly nonsense. Trying to be polite, I engaged with him for a couple of minutes. I could tell it was a conversation that was going nowhere.

After a bit, he noticed that I was no longer responding to him, his voice level lowered. But he continued will a nonstop dialogue with himself.

He ordered Fruit Loops but the server returned to tell him they didn’t have Fruit Loops. (a very fitting choice of cereal I thought) He decided Apple Jacks and a piece of toast would work.

Without looking up he told himself why he liked eating Apple Jack cereal.

He went on saying what all he needed to do today. Thankfully it was a much quieter tone, just loud enough I could hear him or I could block it out if I wanted to.

I thought to myself, “why is this guy doing this”? I decided to see what would cause this behavior.

I finished up and got ready to leave. No one else was in the section where we were seated, so I sidled up to his table. He had his head sort of bowed, but he wasn’t praying. I finally blurted out “have you ever been diagnosed with what causes you to talk to yourself”?

He said he hadn’t actually had a diagnosis but he knows that he does that very thing. Said it happened after a bad accident. (now I regret not asking more about the accident)

He said “I have a big slit down the back of my head that left my brain exposed, and if I don’t keep talking I forget everything. It’s like all my thoughts just spill out.”

Thankfully I didn’t ask to see this split down the back of his head because something tells me he would have pulled his cap off and showed me.

He went on to say that it’s all healed shut now but he still feels like his thoughts will come tumbling out.

As I left and got to the parking lot, I decided to write this all down, hoping to see him come out of the place and whether he was on foot or if he got in a car and drove away. As luck would have it, I never caught a glimpse of him leaving.

I just remembered, that he said “I knew a woman that worked as a receptionist in an attorney’s office in Lubbock that did the same thing. When someone walked in she would say Good Morning Mr. Williams, then would start repeating everything the two of them had ever talked about, then would move on to the next person”. Seems dangerous for confidentiality reasons.