For all intensive purposes, this was entirely a day of travel. My morning flight out of London landed in India at 1:30 the next morning. I didn't really sleep: I was still on a high from my adventure so far (and I wanted to see Jean Reno in Ronin, the in-flight movie). So that makes 13 hours or so I'd been up when I landed in India (at 1:30 AM local time). My journal entry on the flight reads:
Good God. Here I am. Business Class with a fine glass of French Bordeaux (Haut-Mèdoc, Chateau Maurac) on my way to India. I keep thinking very briefly that I should write down some of my Welsh adventures, but I guess I'll have time in the familiar surroundings of home. And what details I forget I can make up.
How about one memorable, perhaps unforgettable, snapshot from last night in Piccadilly Circus--then I'll return to the here and now (and, unfortunately, probably stow this notebook away or just start drawing in it):
I'm walking out of the Criterion Theatre, smirking and reminiscing about the clever play I'd just seen. Though there's a film of fresh rain on the pavement--well, as fresh as the rain gets in London--the crowds and the bustle merely pause briefly under a marquee to open their umbrellas and continue along.
(Time out for the here and now... we're over an incredible stretch of mountains--probably the French Alps if I've guessed right--nope, it was the Eastern edge of the Alps in Austria, I think; the guy next to me saw me trying to figure out where we were, so he switched on the TV at our seat and showed me the channel that shows where we are on several detailed topographic maps, along with speed, temperature, and E.T.A.. So much for guessing...)
I fall in stride with the Sunday London bustle and allow it to sweep me along the sidewalks of Piccadilly. I gaze around at the passing people and scenery, which somehow seems pretty harmonious--stage plays and sex shops, pan handlers and presidents-of-somethingerother--when a dim corner on the steps of a closed business turns and holds my eyes.There, wedged in a corner of the stoop, is a bedraggled man, unkempt and shabby, but intense. His intensity is focussed on the needle he's holding carefully against his bare arm. He's frozen there, watching only the needle. Whether the potion is working its charm, or he's pausing before inserting it, or whether it was my mind that froze him into this surreal moment I'll never know.
I'm left with burning questions. Why here, looking onto one of London's busiest intersections at night? Is it a sort of exhibitionism? Does he hope to be seen, or is he in his own drug- or sorrow-induced world where none of us exist or matter? If he hopes to be seen, what does he hope people will do? Scream, call the police, and toss him onto a cold concrete jail floor which he can then use as a bedrock upon which he can build some sort of life? Does he hope someone will find pity or compassion and help somehow? Does he hope someone will commiserate and join him? Perhaps he's just waiting for the day someone--anyone--will do something--anything--other than walk on past...
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