Short Assignment I wrote for class

The Talk of The Town
His name is Oliver Nibbs. I have seen him walk about town many times; always wearing the
same clothes, worn looking jeans and a faded blue t-shirt sometimes with a plaid shirt over it
sometimes without. He looks like an aging hippy with his long grey hair hanging limply on his
shoulders, not really dirty, but not what you’d call neatly groomed either. His thin face is lined
with the wrinkles that both old age and hard living can bring to a man, yet his face structure was
such that one could still see what he might have looked like as a boy. I’ll bet the girls thought he
was cute. Yes I can still see that. His thin frame carried not an ounce of fat, yet he didn’t look
as if he were starving either. Maybe it’s all that walking he does.
He is what is known as the town eccentric. That’s one of those polite terms for the guy that
everyone laughs at and talks about as if they know him firsthand. The guy who they say does
all kinds of strange things and who’s very existence is the source of legend in a small town.
Everyone knows someone who knows someone who has firsthand knowledge of something that Oliver has done. Some say he used to walk around town in skirts and fishnet stockings mumbling to himself and casting ominous glances at the upstanding citizens that passed by.
People say he was a promising young athlete and scholar but that part of his life was ruined by his use of drugs. His brain was fried, they said nodding knowingly. He parents were weirdos too, rich weirdos who lost all of their money somehow.
Yet for all the things people claimed to know about this man, I’ve often wondered what his story really was. This quiet man who walked up and down the city streets in all kind of weather never looking anyone directly in the eye. This same man who I’d seen sitting in the public library watching television on one of the small sets in the media center; his gaze taking in everything on the screen in front of him with no signs of emotion crossing his face at all. Was he aware of the things that the townspeople had been saying about him for years? Was there any grain of
truth to the stories at all?
I never saw him in the company of any friends, he was always alone. I’m not sure if this is by choice or if his reputation preceded him. Anyway, I find myself looking at him with interest as he walks down the street and wonder what kind of story lies behind those blank eyes. I’m sure if I asked someone in town they would find someone who knows all about him, and I still wouldn’t know the truth would I?

I wrote this years ago, I always thought it could use a little more of something, but I had to keep it under 500 words, so I cut a lot of the original stuff, trying to keep as much detail as I could. Trying to write some more in the current book but I haven't been home that long and I'm still trying to settle in.