I just re-read The Other (from The Book of Sand) by Jorges Luis Borges, and remembered an incident from my past…

I was in an art supply store on Granville Island. There was only one other customer; he appeared to be in his mid-fifties and was about my height, I decided. His hair was fine and white, yet his eyebrows were a thick, dark brown, and the contrast provided the eyebrows a curious distinction. His eyes were green; however, they sometimes appeared blue when he turned toward the light (which flowed into the room from windows high above and poured down and through Brownian dust-motes). He was very fit, but not heavily muscled. His forearms were extraordinarily large: Popeye-like. In marked disparity, he had long, elegant fingers. He was dressed in khaki pants, a light purple sweatshirt, and worn sandals. He stood by the pencils, sketching on a pad that was there for customers to experiment on. Occasionally ― or so I imagined ― he paused, glanced at me and then refocused on his doodle.  I had finished my shopping, but I needed to see what he had been doing. I lurked through the isles; never straying too far from the man, eying the paints, paper, brushes, and all and sundry with perfunctory attention.

… It seemed like eons passed before he looked at me, tipped his hat (a hat? I could swear he wasn’t wearing a hat before!) and ambled out the front door. I was sure he hadn’t taken the piece of paper with him, so I hastened over, tore the scribbled doodle off the pad and stuffed it in my shirt pocket after a quick glance at it. I bought some watercolor paper and a couple of tubes of paint and then walked ― in what I considered to be a leisurely manner ― to my car; after getting in and looking around surreptitiously for the mysterious stranger, I slipped the small doodle from my pocket: it looked, at first, like a scribbled mess. Yet after examining it for several moments I could discern an abstract image. It was a man’s face; in fact, it was a drawing of me, and a very good one. He had captured my mood in an inconceivable way; I looked curious, apprehensive, and sly.

There was some writing in the bottom, right-hand corner; at first, I thought it was a signature. But I eventually realized it was a short message: “Keep trying; you’re getting closer.” And in smaller lettering: “And get some exercise; respect our body!”