Hypothetical #2 (Patreon)

This story was first written as someones first person experience on a commuter train. My goal with the hypothetical series is to attempt to remove as decision making as possible from me and instead present just a scenario. About one day after I published the story "Train of Thought" I realized that I would rather have it as an hypothetical, so I did a small rewrite and published it, This is the original...

Train of Thought 

Your concentrated news reading bursts as he plop down across the aisle. There are plenty of other seats on the train at this hour, so why this one? He doesn’t seem to give a shit about public transportation etiquette. He’s not clumsy exactly. Cumbersome is perhaps the word. He moves more than needed, noisily fuss with his stuff and above all take inconsiderable amounts of space. Lucky the train is almost deserted. He has barely settled, slouching and legs wide, before he gets restless again. Shaking his right leg, tapping to some imaginary fast paced heavy metal. He fuss some more with the bag, pull out a plastic bottle with some neon colored liquid and vigorously empty it. As he makes a pause to exhale loudly he catches a glimpse of you staring. You look away. He continues unabashed and unabated. He is not oblivious but arrogant, you conclude. Next you dare sneak a peek he is undressing, removing his thick sweatshirt and revealing a sleeveless T-shirt. T-shirt? At what point does a T-shirt functionally seize to be a shirt at all? After scratching himself on the chest, under the shirt, and doing some swings in the air, he starts to methodically flex his muscles, group after group. It’s mesmerizing. Whatever disdain you have for this crude, rude punk you can’t help but to marvel at what he has created.  You covertly tilt the phone you had been scrolling through news on before, angle it his way and press the camera button.

*CLICK*

As the shutter sound goes off a smile breaks out on his face. A smug gotcha face. “I thought so” he says, looking at you. Then one of his large hands dive into the flimsy pockets of the track pants and pull out a crumbled receipt. He picks a pen from the outer pocket of the bag, scribbles something on it, and folds it. He stands up, grabs his bag, and just as he is leaving he hands you the piece of paper. You are confused as to exactly what just happened. As he leaves, your mind races through options, trying to decide what you most want the scribbles to say.