Streatham

Streatham. Home.

As it was my first day at home I figured a stroll would be good. Stretch the muscles in the head and the legs. Get out of the house for a while. Contemplate.

Streatham High Street is five minutes away. It seemed like a good enough place to go. It's a dull road. Lots of shops.

We have two Kentucky Fried Chicken outlets to start. Not sure why we need more than one but there's something they do to chicken in Kentucky that makes it popular in Streatham. I can’t trust my neighbours anymore.

I tried to settle in, to feel local. The police tried their best to stop a bus without getting in my way. A squad car in front of a double decker and two plain clothes guys, in t-shirts, caps and bullet proof vests, looking important in a car round the back. I saw a couple of guys with beards sat in the bus, but nothing else. Could be the bus was just late. But I'm not convinced the fuzz has a department to cover that.

Still, just when you thought you'd seen everything but the kitchen sink, the kitchen sink walks by, in a bag, on the back of a transient man heading north. He had his reasons I suppose. Among them perhas the need to feel clean. But by now I'd had enough. Head home. To your small patch of London that hasn't been altered by the heat and the reality bump. Except the guy across the road of course. Unseen, but heard, making a breed of "eurgh" noise on a staccato two second beat. Dry heaving the last flickers of a forgotten vodka binge I figured. He could be dead now.

But it's not always the daytime lunatics that leave an impression. One of those night time phantoms came my way, a red face middle aged man with a can of Stella. He approached tonight as I was coming home from a 'Hemmingway-esque' evening walk. Mentally I was ready to fire off a burst of swear words. "Fuckers" and "bastards" are like boxing gloves, and these people move fast to get these words in first. Instead, all he said was that around the next corner I should stop, look west, and watch the sun go down. He smiled, and as a drunk why shouldn't he, and I said thanks.

I did stop, and he was right, the sun looked red and great. I only saw the last of it, the sun's scalp. Time had moved slowly in my drunken friend's head and he'd forgotten that what he'd just seen would by now have gone.

But sometimes it's these unlikely passers-by who see what's really going on. Forget the police, the lunatics and people carrying kitchens on their back that make you feel strange. Ignore that and open your eyes once in a while. Nice is better than not nice.