...He looks around, stooped against the ferocity of the wind, the stark light and cruel weather accentuating his age. Leaning his back against the graffiti daubed wall next to the alley way he takes his hand from the warm cocoon of his pocket and, cigarette held firmly between thin lips, begins to run his thumb nail under the nails of his left hand, occasionally teasing and balling something from underneath and gently flicking it away before moving on to the next. He has the face of a working man, lined with the furrows of years of strain and labour, a fruitless toil that perhaps he is pondering as he runs his nail over thick, yellow stained cigarette fingers, skin coarse to his touch yet betraying the softness that lies hidden beneath that calloused skin. A softness that possibly only becomes evident in the company of the woman he may or may not be going home to.
He pushes himself from the wall cups his fingers round the now feebly glowing cigarette and with a sharp jolt of his forefinger sends it spiraling to the ground where it skitters about in the grip of the wind, the tip leaving a slight trail of tiny sparks each time it catches on the concrete. The echoing crack of his heels on the hard ground rises above the melancholy howl of the wind as he ventures into the shadowy hollows between the looming buildings and dimly lit alleys. I hope what I thought is true, that he is going home to some situation that would fill his wind battered body with warmth, that someone is waiting to see him at the end of his journey. It would be nice for a change in this place just for something so simple and realistic to be a tangible hope. What have we become when our greatest hopes and dreams are just for a moment of mundane normality? Turning from the window I go to slip on my shoes and brace myself for the weather I shall have to battle on the way to this pub. A great deal of trouble to go to just to forget about this place, I know, but on the other side of the coin I know it will still be waiting for me when I return, always waiting, like a stale threat on the lips of a school bully. You want to avoid it, to run from it but inevitably it will always catch you.