A mystery solved, a man understood. Mostly.

Or why as a writer you can let your wildest imagination run away with you but sometimes a simple answer is just as intriguing.

I’m currently living in an above-ground apartment overlooking a swathe of green not too far from the CBD of the city of Melbourne, Australia.

I work and study from home most of the time. My office is effectively a large corner of the living room where I sit and work against the backdrop of a freight train line, and all the rumbling but somehow comforting activity that comes with this, and a brilliant view of the cityscape which you can catch glimpses of on my Insta feed if you like.

This prime view often distracts me, and I maybe just a little too often find myself staring wistfully out the window at the city in the not-so-far distance.

But also…there is this guy.

He must be in his late fifties, maybe early sixties, hard to tell because he dies his hair — it’s that orange colour with whisps of grey and white that Trump (shit I couldn’t help myself) would be so bigly proud he invented.

Caucasian, with a small mo, he dresses ina fairly non-descript way like an older uncle might, and makes an appearance weekly, if not several times a week.

What’s the big deal?

Well, there isn’t one.

I guess.

Except that whenever he arrives he always goes to the same spot in the park below — a small grove of trees not far below my balcony. Into the copse he goes, disappearing from view for a little, occasionally visible as he moves about.

Sometimes he emerges and sits on a concrete bench, other times I’ve seen him on a mobile chatting, but most often he just wanders away.

I’ve also seen him in the streets of my suburb occasionally, head down as he walks his slow lope, almost invisible — or rather as though he is trying to be invisible.

So, my overactive writer mind began crafting a story about this fella.

Or stories.

In one, he is a drug mule because his non-descript cover makes him the perfect fit, carrying money and drugs to the secret bushes and leaving them there for whoever he works for.

In another, he is this super-rich dude who has buried a stack of dough in the ground in the little bushy enclosure to escape the tax office.

Or maybe a cannibalistic murderer, hiding various body parts in a specially constructed outdoor chilling device.

In another still, he is merely having an affair, with him and his lover using a knotty hole in the trunk of one of the trees to exchange messages so there is no trace via texts or phone calls that might reveal their adulterous amour.

Clearly, my childhood reading “The Famous Five” and “The Hardy Boys” had the desired effect of its authors…a mind ripe for mystery!

I’ve tried to glean what’s going on from my eyrie, but I’m just out of clear vision of seeing what he is up to — plus the bushy enclosure he goes into, while not huge, is too dense to see through.

Yesterday, having seen him the day before up to whatever nefarious or clandestine activity he might be, I went for my usual middle of the day walk but really, with my curiosity unshackled, headed to his hidey-hole.

Approaching, I will admit, a little nervously wondering what I might find there, I tried to look as innocent as possible for fear he might be in there or may arrive even as I pierced his secret spot — just a local looking for…umm… a ball I had thrown in the park with my imaginary dog.

Hmmm.

The mystery?

What lay in the secret copse?

Would it live up to all my “Famous Five” expectations?

What I found was…

Clothing laid on the branches as under cover as could be, nature’s clothesline.

A pair of old white trainers, partially buried under some plastic to protect them from the elements.

And not much else.

A very ordinary situation.

A simple man who lives somewhere he doesn’t feel safe leaving his few possessions but has found another place to air them, wash them, clean them, store them.

A man whose story I’m still fascinated by.