TWO VISITORS

I want to write. I want to tell a story.

However, I think what I really want is an inspiration, something that tells itself, something knocking the door at the back of my mind, wanting to be let in, and all I have to do is to open that door. Lately I have been thinking about a few men I keep bumping into. Both normally hang out around Oxford Street, though I have seen the first guy somewhere else. He always walks around in trainers, a pair of tennis shorts if it's summer, a navy blue track bottom in winter. He carries with him a megaphone, through which he spouts mixed messages; God's love to all mankind, but at times fulminating profusely about how the rest of the world is going to hell in a handbasket. He never tires of his own voice, and he does not care whether anyone is listening; to him, the sound of his own voice is a comfort, a reassurance of his own mortality, his very existence, an affirmation that this is not a dream. He proclaims proudly that he exists, and to my mind he does so brilliantly, no matter how poor, how ineffective his diatribes can be.

The second man also declares his existence, but in a more subtle and gentle way. I often see him outside John Lewis, where he plays his violin every day, full of passion and energy and at times, sadness. Maybe it is because he is blind that I construe him as a gentle soul. I once wanted to buy him a drink, coffee perhaps, but instead, I sat down on a bench, and listened. In truth, I was afraid. Afraid that I am wrong about him. Maybe what I perceive him to be is merely a construct of my memories, of childhood tales of kindness to those less fortunate. If such is the case, however, I am glad. At least I have yet to lose the capacity to think kindly of others.

Hark! Is that the sound of my muse approaching, gently tapping, ceaselessly tapping on the door?

- `'Tis some visitor,' I muttered, `tapping at my chamber door
Only this, and nothing more.' -
Edgar Allan Poe