A CHANCE ENCOUNTER

Was it the hunt and peck

that incessant discordant clatter

of a pool of girly typists typing

or their less than accomplished

orchestration of du Maurier

‘filtered for flavour’ induced

wheezes that made him conclude

that one cannot be a traitor

on a globe without frontiers?

Given the choice he would relocate to Leningrad, join the Soviets, drink history and neat vodka

in equal measure and thereafter write a tome regarding the failings of democratic endeavour

nearly five o’clock on a Friday night

the office would soon be locked up

he could put aside dismal thoughts

of paperwork, pens and thumbtacks

for those of ale, tarts and fruit machines

the red lights of Soho scared him shitless

the punters in pubs looked at him

as if he were either a loser or a loner

devoid of even a modicum of social etiquette

a smart restaurant quite out of the question

it would have to be the usual Wimpy Bar burger

thereafter sipping from a half bottle of whisky

disguised within a recyclable brown paper bag

sat alone on his bench of preference

under a light polluted full moon in Hyde Park

‘Home’ such as it was, a ‘no place for a harem’

one bed, top of a jerry-built block

of council flats in Haringey had scant appeal

“Watcha Mister, don’t mind if I sit with you? I’ve just bounced off a distant Sun and it didn’t even scorch my knicker elastic…how impressive is that?” So said, the young lady who appeared

out of nowhere, with the look of a gregarious personage about her being

she did though, have beguiling chocolate eyes and a smile that never took rest

a painfully shy man, he merely nodded a tight-lipped affirmative

“What year is it?” A bizarre question

“1962…18^th September,” his less than confident riposte

In a posh, posh voice, “Botheration, I was hoping it was August 2^nd 2027…jolly good eclipse on that day. Mind, you’ll need to be in Cairo to see it properly. Have you ever travelled to The Milky Way?” 

“Never” 

“Tell you what…take hold of my hands, shut your eyes and I’ll take you there…it’s so nice to be back in the known universe!”

Against all odds in his narrowest realm, a quiet and self-conscious man

had unwittingly chanced upon a demonstrative time-traveller

henceforth, he would never have need of a pet cat, junk food and drab ruminations