@seerspectacles liked for a starter!
don’t say it, don’t say it, at best you’re going to make a jerk of yourself and at worst you’re going to seriously offend them, just keep it to yourself this once, cecil -- is approximately what runs through his head as he approaches the stranger, all three eyes pretending to avert their gazes politely so they can walk past each other on the sidewalk with as little conflict as possible.
that isn’t what happens, of course, because cecil tries to smile at him but realizes too late that instead his lips are parting, his vocal chords are vibrating, his tongue is moving to shape the words: “wow! you look so very weird!”
now that’s a top contender for worst thing he’s ever said to a complete and total stranger. during the moment of him clapping his hand to his forehead to display just how mortified and appalled he is by his own words, cecil considers just running away. it’s not like he would catch up to him, right? he could get a pretty good head start, and then he would really have to commit to following him just to chew him out for saying something strange and mildly offensive.
instead, in a move that feels like both - or either - dumping water on a grease fire or gently diffusing the situation, cecil decides to explain himself, for some reason. it’s sort of like schrodinger's cat.
“i mean, not in a bad way or anything. there are plenty of good ways to look weird! but it’s like -- okay, you know when you walk past your window at night, and all the lights in your house are off, and you see the silhouette of someone standing across the street, illuminated by the hazy orange glow of the street lamps outside but you still can’t make out any details about them, and you think to yourself, ‘gee, what a strange time to be waiting for the bus! guess they don’t mind working the night shift!’. but then when you walk by again a few minutes later you realize that figure isn’t actually a person and quite possibly never was one, but is now instead just the newspaper dispenser at the bus stop? and this time you think, ‘huh, i’ve never seen a newspaper dispenser out there before! how could i have thought that was a person? silly me!’. but you’ve never seen it out there before and you never see it out there again, but that’s fine because you never think about it again, and it never thinks about you anymore either.”
cecil takes a breath, unbothered by his own ramblings. “that’s what you look like.”
