Open Writing

Life in today's hurly-burly must-get-there-faster world leaves little time to sit and enjoy what is there for the taking. Too busy earning a living, looking after the kids or climbing the property ladder, life passes many of us by until we reach the harbour of retirement - if we haven't completely burnt-out by that time.

The little old man sitting on a bench on Felixstowe sea-front looked as if he had seen life. His face was what might be described as 'lived-in' and his general demeanour, as he sat slumped on that bench, wrapped in a heavy coat and wearing a Russian fur hat to afford some protection from the icy blast coming ashore from the North Sea, was of someone perhaps to be pitied but at the same time envied for his detachment from the cares of a cruel world..

There was plenty of room on the bench so I gave him a cheery 'Good afternoon' and took my place beside him.

'It is,' he replied, not for one second diverting his gaze from the distant horizon. He was clearly in no mood for conversation, and why should he want to talk to a complete stranger anyway?

The day was bright and sunny but that icy blast could not be ignored so I kept my hands in my pockets for warmth but my mind could not relax in the presence of all that was happening before my eyes.

The sea lapped incessantly, like a dog snapping at the postman's trousers, at the breakwaters on the beach. I noticed that another section had gone since my last visit, but that was nothing compared with the devastation further up the coast where the sea has waged a relentless war of attrition for centuries, little deterred by the millions of tons of rock being constantly deposited on the foreshore by puny human effort in an unequal struggle against nature.

A few hundred metres off-shore the lumbering great shape of a container ship plodded slowly across the near horizon. High tide was approaching and the busy container port of Felixstowe, one of the largest in Europe, would be accepting traffic now. What goodies were on their way to our hungry consumer market this time, I wondered, remembering that just a few weeks ago the port was brought to a standstill, over-filled with millions of brassieres and other textiles from China which had exceeded their import quota while the mills of northern England stood silent and derelict.

Every few minutes another shipment arrived in a solemn funeral-like procession. Perhaps that choice of words is not entirely inappropriate.

A sudden flurry of excitement as the seagulls mob a young woman and two small children throwing bread to them, delighting in their acrobatic antics as they catch the food in mid-air. Wonderful creatures, birds, but sadly now feared as the bringers of doom, likely at any moment to cause a great plague forecast by 'those who know' to affect a quarter of the human population of the planet

But whatever might be in the near future, something happening here and now requires immediate attention: a man walking his dog on the narrow strip of green sward is embarrassed when his pet 'does a whoopsie'. He reaches into his pocket and produces a plastic bag which he puts on his hand like a glove and removes the offending material to one of many bins placed strategically by a thoughtful local authority.

Now the seaward scene has changed: there is still the procession of leviathans heading right-to-left towards the container port but now there is the futuristic shape of a giant catamaran passenger ferry surging through the waves in the opposite direction, out of the Harwich international terminal, bound for who-knows-where. What dreams are held among the passengers on board? Who are they? What are they thinking about as they leave our shores for adventures new?

I glance casually to my left: the old man is still sitting motionless, staring at the horizon, but out of the corner of his eye he notices that I am looking at him.

'A penny for them,' he says.

'Pardon?' I reply.

'A penny for your thoughts,' he explains, 'You see, I live on my own but all the world's right here for me to see, and every evening when I get home I write up my day's experiences in my journal. There's never a shortage of anything to record.' A short pause, and then, 'You will be in it tonight.'

'What a lovely thought,' I reply.

I'll remember that little old man (I didn't even ask his name!) the next time I hear anybody say, 'Life is boring because nothing ever happens to me.'

I might even start a journal.

© 2007 Arthur Loosley