Strokes

A gentleman with not a little experience of life and the haphazard we put into order through its resemblance to meant to be etc. confides in his walking stick his careful position on the pavement, plotting his and the oncoming traffic’s co-ordinates, almost seamlessly. Delicate and gentle like, he scrimps on the space between himself and passer-by. His smile is greeted by an abashed apology and sidestepped oddly. He’d never been to the Falklands, his time in the Miner’s strike, on the other side, formative but brief it seemed. He frequented coffee shops sometimes- as he saw it people went there who had too much time and thus this might expand upon the awkward ‘Hi’.

Social deprivation and The Big Issue sat outside while he ordered a flat white. Since the stroke ‘cappuccino’ was more of a question than a statement. He couldn’t round and release the plosive onset in time and afficates ‘ch’, often eluded him- so here it was his flat white. No sugar because who can form a convincing fricative ‘sh’ in his condition without the steady pulse of caffeine. There was another old guy- a man like him, who came in with a kind of lapdog that he strategically diverted towards every young woman in the place. He felt disgusted in himself for not apprehending him but the guy was pleasant enough, the dog scuttles under their tables and in our modern society a woman can’t ignore a dog without being declared unnatural.

Speaking of devildom, the old rascal may as well have shot under the table himself the way he shamelessly claimed the relevant female’s attention. Maybe he was being too critical, he was only a few years into proper ‘retirement’, give him a couple more he might similarly invest in a canine that was still capable of being the object of sincere affection. The Lady and the Lapdog finally relieved the short circuit going on in his brain the last twenty minutes or so, but Chekhov wasn’t much use to him now. Although straddling a ‘obscure’ Russian author under his arm as some sort of conversational dynamite might have done something for someone. It would be chaotic, fleeting, but reflection still that could ignite a few less painful paragraphs of his life’s work- as yet untitled.

After the stroke he was given a designated ‘conversation partner’. They talk to you but they don’t get paid; total communication they call it.

The ink stains the paper beyond the pressure of the corruptible point of the felt kids pen. But it’s more like the impression. The flowers, for the clumsiness, I anticipate it with the strokes I make next, pouring over the crudest of colours to create an image worthy of its likeness. I copy the madman in the genius with the poor girl, student’s, sharpies. She read on my profile I like art and brought us a book of Van Gogh to discuss

I look at her as she sits, I think gingerly, in the seat opposite me. I drool and make noises periodically

And she witters on about something credible, now negligible, my life compressed into a little profile on an a4 sheet that demands, like the old guy, attention and flattery- ‘you used to work with the homeless…’ she approaches me with first. She tries putting my lack of intelligible responses into a box, ‘you must be tired’

Weekly hours of our designated chat pass. I, determined to show her I’m not an idiot- Used the material before me with line drawings marking man, woman and toilet- I emblazoned the paper with an amateur copy of sunflowers. The excess ink sunk in by my poor postured grip, transforms into conversation for many weeks, sprawled across the sheet but something tangible still.