A Seattle urban vignette in seconds
Heavy traffic along the Seattle/Shoreline border. Construction, motor vehicles, regular pedestrians, and, sadly, fellow humans who appeared homeless and mentally ill. Mental illness is itself a culturally ingrained yet incorrect label we place upon people with diseases and injuries of the mind and emotions yet are as physical as cancer, tuberculosis, and fractured femurs. All things mental arise from the body, and so-called mental illness is as physical as anything physical. Perhaps a more accurate term is neuropsychological diseases and injuries. Too much of a mouthful, tho, for what is a global pandemic of mental illness and emotional trauma.
Early this Saturday afternoon as I pulled out from Walgreens onto Aurora Avenue in my car upon the last day of August 2024, I noticed the folks waiting nearby for the bus. They had my attention, those fellow human beings. Glad traffic was light, too, as then was able to whip out carefully and methodically instead of the usual dash and dart. My goodness, those fellow humans appeared to be really weird looking fellow human beings. One of them sat on the bench at the bus stop there. She was an enormous White woman, simply gargantuan, and appeared to weigh, gosh, maybe 300 or 350 pounds. All she had on was a teeny tiny black swimsuit, and it was all stretched out as she reclined upon that bench taking slow, calm drags on a cigarette. Temps was mid-70s outside, Fahrenheit, and her pasty, white flesh overflowed out of her super tight, stretched out everwhichaway black swimsuit.
Right next to her, on her right side, sat a teeny tiny, old Black man with bad hair all mashed up end pulled out crazy like like wild blackberry brambles pulling down a rusty, old barbed wire fence. The fella crouched upon the bench like a scrawny little bear cub doggie boo. He wore dirty gray and blue clothes. Dwarfed by the lady he shared the bench with, he gripped a cigarette between thumb and index finger. The man jabbed that cigarette in and outa his mouth every other second as he puffing jerkily with high, agitated anxiety. As the flow of buses, cars, and trucks eased up, I darted out into lanes of traffic and rocketed north.
At the same time, all during this moment in time, I was also hyperaware of my judgements and opinions of these two people. This was followed immediately by my judgements and opinions of myself for having such judgments and opinions. They burst forth from the mud of my mind. Felt toxic. I felt ashamed. Felt disgusted with my inability to be free from judgements. At least I was present enough to recognized these judgements of my fellow humans as well as what I made it all mean as well as recognize my negative opinions of my own judgments.
I swear this is all true to the best of my abilities to remember these details. Over my life, especially as a profoundly hard-of-hearing young man with ADHD and several learning disabilities and as a natural born writer I’ve trained my powers of keen and rapid observation into a super power. Others have noticed this ability as well and have commented upon this superpower. It was not an orderly process I set out with any intention to train and develop myself. Instead this ability to observe event quickly developed until I became aware of it. Took me longer to write this, originally a text to my wife after I parked in the garage back home, than to observe the scene as I also looked both ways before pulling out into traffic. Ahead of the bus back at the stop light, too.
“Faithlyn,” I asked my wife via text messaging on an iPhone, “what is it with people? I am so glad you don’t behave like that woman did, nor I like that man. Glad we ain’t them. Yet we’re all fellow humans down in this mad, mad world together. God bless them all, yes?”
Life is messy. And our country is in an enormous mess and so is our world, human messes, messes of our own making. But none of this stop. It did not stop. Heavy traffic flows. Construction never ends. Madness remains ongoing.
A whole month later, on the morning of Monday the 30th of September, I witnessed in seconds as I drove along Aurora Avenue again more people endangering themselves and others. Homeless people struggling with harsh challenges and difficult disorders. At the same bus stop as before next to Walgreens near the intersection of Aurora Avenue/99 N and N 145th Street, a youngish Black man bounced around hunched over sproinging and boinging. He swung his arms wildly like unbalanced propellers. He seemed to be screaming and singing at the same time. Couldn’t tell what the hell he was doing. Except he never stood up, and at times he raced and skittered quickly across the street like a giant spider missing two legs. There were three piles of clothes and bags with random assorted possessions scattered around the bus stop, and he tore thru each one in turn. As he did so he snatched and flung items up in the air and out into the street. Throwing dirty clothes and trash and stuff at cars and up in the air as if hurling crap up at God himself. Then he’d zip out into the street, stop and shout, scream and sing, all while hunched over, then spider boogie back to the bus stop. Two women tried to stand there to wait for the bus, but they couldn’t take any more of his blammy nuttery. They didn’t last a minute. They were scared and ran away. Maybe the young man was hunched over due to Fentanyl, but he moved as if cranked on speed and meth. Three other guys stood nearby ignoring him as they stood near those mounds of clothes and luggage debris and waited for the next red and yellow E-Line bus.
Returning back to my apartment complex after refueling my Subaru, I passed a another man doing yoga in the streets. Youngish White man with an unkempt beard. He squatted on the edge of the median strip between the north and southbound lanes glaring at people. He caught my eye and made crazy faces. Scary faces. At me. While trying to do a one-legged yoga stand while in a squat, but couldn’t get one leg in, out, and up far enough. His body jutted out into traffic, too, and a red light stopped traffic southbound. For a second, as I braked to a stop behind other cars at the red light, I truly thought he was about to chase after me like a psychotic tiger. Felt fear, the fear of someone so utterly lost to madness he wants to attack anyone and everyone for reasons known only to him. Felt like something out of an H.P. Lovecraft story from which there is no escape from the inevitable existential terror. The quiet dread and frightful violence when the leviathans of the Cosmos appear at street level.
Sometimes it seems those with certain types of hallucinatory illnesses are actually experiencing true reality without the normal filters our brains use for discernment and interpretation. Our brains, however, can’t handle what exists there, and our minds break. What, actually, is the mind, the one that breaks?
The light turned green, and I shot on down the road behind the wheel of my car. There strode another fellow human trapped in madness and chaos. A tall, slender Black man nearly 7 feet in height. He wore a flouncy, pale, blue miniskirt and twirled a matching pale, blue umbrella. This person, however, stayed on the sidewalk and didn’t dash recklessly out into the streets. What is it about deep mental illnesses that compel humans to race recklessly out into the middle of traffic? Is it an unconscious, desperate cry for help, love, and attention? A yearning to be touched safely and held without fear of abuse? The attempt of a dis-eased brain with an invisible tumor of trauma and psychosis to trick someone to run out into the streets without looking?
Still, I felt overwhelmed by the greater societal, politico-economic forces in play. My judgements and opinions keep popping up relentlessly. People argue endlessly over what the solutions are, claiming to have answers, but none of us do, really. We’re all so busy, myself included. Still, am so glad my wife and I don’t behave like those people did. Glad we ain’t them. Yet we’re all fellow humans down in this mad, mad world together. May the Divine, whatever the Divine is, bless them all, yes?
Sometimes people remark there is no way I witnessed all of those events while driving safely. I either must be a careless and therefore dangerous man behind the wheel of a horseless motor carriage, or I’m making up those stories. Been accused, too, of exaggerating the truth, too. Falsely accused, that is. All is true, however, as true as a sunny, clear sky appears as the color blue. Besides, I hate lying with a passion. Been lied to and hurt too many times.
Can’t diagram a sentence for squittles, tend to be too verbose, get my tenses and pronouns all mixed up, drift into run-on sentences…and I’ve a natural feel for language. I use adjectives to convey a richness of description. Started writing about age 3, according to my late Mother. It’s as if I was born to write. If I were forced to stop writing, I’d shut down, wither away, and die. As a birth trauma baby, I am both profound HOH or Hard-of-Hearing, and have multiple neurodivergent issues and learning disabilities from ADHD to dyscalculia. As you just saw, I repeat myself. To make sure I am listened to, not merely “heard.”
Over my life, especially as a young man both hard of hearing and a natural born writer, I’ve trained my powers of keen and rapid observation into a super power. Others have noticed these gifts and skills to comment upon this superpower. Took me longer to jot down my observations in my iPhone Notes once I’d parked the car than to observe the scene as I also looked both ways before pulling out into traffic. Ahead of the bus back at the stop light, too. Like that time observing a flying, shapeshifting UFO/UAP while driving in heavy traffic over a big bridge in Seattle one afternoon. Yes, observation, perception, and creative writing are among my superpowers. Does not mean I’m an expert or a genius, means only my brain developed in a certain way as a response to trauma, in ways some label “superpowers.
What superpower do you have?
What superpowers might any of those mentally ill street people possess?
William Dudley Bass
Sunday 1 September 2024
Monday 30 September 2024
Monday 30 April 2026
Shoreline/Seattle, WA
USA
Copyright © 2026 by William Dudley Bass. All Rights Reserved by the Author & his Descendants until we Humans establish Wise Stewardship over and for our Earth and Solarian Commons. Thank you.