The Old Invisible Man

In the late nineteen fifties when I was no more than four years old, there was a black-and-white TV series called The Invisible Man. The program was inspired by the 1897 novel of the same name by H.G. Wells and it succeeded in capturing my very young imagination. Never in all my wildest dreams did I imagine that one day I would have my wish come true by becoming The Invisible Man. It took getting old to pull it off, without even trying.

I remember my dearly beloved mother telling me in her eighties that the problem with getting old is that you become invisible. It has taken until now for me to fully appreciate what she meant. In short, at the age of sixty-five, I became invisible. I am now of an age where I am seen as neither a treat nor a threat. I am now a ‘once-was.’

I have four children who I have not heard from for almost fifteen years. For my part, I have tried several times to make contact, all to no avail. For them, for whatever reason, I no longer exist.

Added to that family estrangement has been the death of people I knew, mostly due to old age. Acquaintances and friends alike from long ago have all passed away. Not all were old, some were even younger than me.

In 2020, for health reasons, I had to leave the country I called home for almost 25 years. When I lived in the South of Spain I was surrounded by friendly neighbours. Like the multitude of quite literally thousands of passers by I knew just in passing, they have all gone.

The friends still alive don’t bother to call and I don’t know why and I don’t care. For a time I frequently called those friends until I realised that they never made the effort to call me. So I stopped to see what would happen. They didn’t call, so now I don’t either. I have Skype contact every week with my younger brother and a lifelong friend. That’s it.

Most of the hours of most of the days I am totally alone, until my lovely wife comes home from work, up to twelve hours after she left. I do however go out for an hour or so whenever I can for the exercise. I am on nodding terms with the odd passerby, but that is pretty much it. As far as I’m aware I am the only English person in the city of sixty-eight thousand residents. Most other foreigners are from places in other parts of Asia, such as Sri Lanka.

Despite the lack of social contact, I am not unhappy. On the contrary, I have never felt so peaceful in all of my life. The problem with having lots of contact with other people is that you can become over-involved in their life dramas just by lending an over-sympathetic ear. I have had more than enough histrionics from life’s basket cases to last a lifetime.

I live in a semi-rural area surrounded by small peanut farms and middle-class detached houses. My alarm clock is the crows from a small copse across a field full of tarot potatoes. There is one other curiosity keeping time, care of the local town hall. They have populated the area with a powerful tannoy system. I am sure their intentions were good. The system is used to alert the residents of the importance of not starting any fires in the farm fields, which is illegal, though some farmers feel obliged to burn some of their agricultural rubbish. It is also used to announce any inclement weather events, such as an imminent Earthquake or typhoon. However, it seems that the thing the tannoys are used for mostly is to announce the end of the working day at the end of every afternoon. My wife tells me that the alert is actually to signal children playing in the park that it is time to go home. It reminds me too much of certain holiday camps I have stayed in.

In this otherworldly place I live in, I pass amongst people like a ghost, an invisible man worthy of no more attention than an occasional curious glance. My European features don’t allow me to completely blend in with the Asian populace. The lack of actual contact is no doubt because the Japanese generally keep themselves to themselves. That and the fact that I speak relatively little Japanese and they do not as a rule speak very much English.

The one thing I like about these people is their civil obedience and polite manners. I could leave a thousand dollars on the seat of my car with the windows open overnight and I can guarantee you it will still be there the next day. For those reasons of self-governance, a police presence is very rare. Less than a handful of people are killed by others, and the place where a murder is most likely to happen is in Tokyo, about sixty kilometres from where I live.

As I have mentioned before, I never see any drunks, drug addicts, beggars or thieves around. They simply do not exist, at least not where I live. For that, I am truly thankful. My lack of any social contact in the real world is more than compensated for by my online interactions, which I can take or leave at will. Some people say I must get lonely. I have felt more lonely surrounded by other people.

When my mother said the only problem with getting old was becoming invisible, she said it in a sad tone of voice. I am saying it with a tone of unbridled joy. I have my amazing wife and that is all I need. Being invisible (almost) has turned out to be every bit as enjoyable as I thought it would be sixty-five years ago. Better late than never, I guess.

Disclosure notice; This post contains an affiliate link to an AI publication from which I may receive a modest commission if you click on the link at no cost to you.

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