Commonword Blogs

There is something about this bench. A futuristic steel thing, dropped outside a sighing local pub and a hoarded off patch of derelict land, the hoarding lurching into the back of the sitter. Its one of the few places you can sit outside in Rusholme without smoking a shisha pipe. Early morning, there was an man there, nestled between the pub and the screaming dance posters, very early morning, just him there, and me walking towars him on my way to the bus stop. He was wearing a beige kameez, a brown Bhs coat and a standard issue bushy grey beard (that old men get from the standard issue old grey beard shop -I’ve placed my order!). He looked up at me, but his eyes were far away, I imagined sunrise in the hills of the Punjab but perhaps he was running around the streets of Barcelona in his mind.