Farewell to Brighton
In Brighton you come across the strangest characters. I saw a tall, thin man last week, wearing a rugged top-hat, humming a little song for the tiny dog that ran along the street with him. Also, there is this old guy who”s got a colourful zoo of origami animals on sale. He is usually sat on the ground near the entrance to the South Lanes, looking quite desperate with his thin, greyish hair falling over his shoulders as if he had just descended from the sea, his eyes staring at some crack in time and dimension. He generally doesn’t speak to people, they just take the paper animal they want and leave him a pound or two. Only once I must have walked by with a smile on my face, because he looked up and cried out laughing: “Hey, smiler!” Out of surprise I bought a Japanese Box off him. Probably he’s a very good salesman deep inside.
Yeah, I’ll miss Brighton, and the sea, and the tiny old house we shared, and my flatmates, my workmates (not my work, though), the soft hills of the South Downs, the weekends in London and good old England in general… But I can always come back, can’t I?
