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| Thursday, November 27, 2008
Lamp-post by Benjamin Chow"As she stood looking at it, wondering why there was a lamp-post in the middle of a wood and wondering what to do next, she heard a pitter patter of feet coming towards her. And soon after that a very strange person stepped out from among the trees into the light of the lamp-post." ~ C.S. Lewis ................................................................................................................... Every evening at precisely six o'clock, I would pack up my things and leave the Office. Files, notes, legal papers; my suitcase impatiently ate them all. (I would leave the angriest looking papers on the desk though. No sense dealing with those at home.) I lived in the suburbs on the outskirts of the city; a nice quiet house on a nice quiet street. It was the best I could manage. Janice had wanted to live out in the country. Compromise, I thought, as I drove slowly past dying shop houses and alleys tattooed with graffiti. Just smile and find that compromise. Make the damn thing work. It began to drizzle. I stopped at a red light and pulled out a Mars Bar from the car's desk compartment. The compartment was the type that folded out from underneath, like a pocket. Alison called it her Secret Sweet-Hiding Place. Ever since the age of six, she had used it to stash her candy. As a result, we now had an endless supply of snacks in the car. "For rainy days only!" she'd said. I smiled as I bit into the warm, sticky chocolate. The case I was working on loitered at the back of my skull. It was an ugly little divorce; petty, merciless- the usual. All sound and fury, I thought, and sighed. The lights turned green. I tried to focus on driving. It was getting late in the year. Fall had come and gone, and the world seemed to be holding its breath, a brief intermission of cold and hard and bleak, before winter arrived with a vengeance. The days seemed shorter, somehow. Frightened. I was almost home now. The small lane that led up to the drive where my house was perched greeted me like an old friend. Alison loved to play here, in the Autumn. I remembered how she would run all the way up and down the length of the road, yelling and giggling as she kicked at leaf piles and stepped on every stray leaf that blew her way, making them crunch into the pavement. It was a very noisy affair. Nobody ever made a fuss about it though, which was really no surprise since nobody lived around here, besides us. Still, Janice would always keep an eye on her, from the end of the driveway, and call her back the moment the lamppost lit up and the dark began to settle. I smiled at the memory. It had stopped drizzling. I was so caught up in the nostalgia of it all that I almost missed him entirely. A small figure was huddled at the base of the lamppost. At first I thought it was Alison, but that was impossible; Janice would never let her out so late. As I drew nearer, I could make out a man's face, poking up out of a thick scarf. I knew it was a man. He had a face that quite definitely needed a shave. Apart from his beard, nothing else was really distinct. He was covered from head to toe in a large brown great-coat, and he seemed to be fumbling with an umbrella. A tramp? I wondered. I doubted it. I never saw them this far out from the city. They wouldn't come here. Shelter was scarce. I slowed down as I reached the lamppost and pulled up on the curb, a relatively safe distance from the seemingly harmless figure curled up in the pale yellow light. I rolled down the window. "Hello?" I ventured, cautiously. "Are you lost?" The little man startled at the sound of my voice. He closed his umbrella, leaned it against the lamppost and shifted around to look at me properly. "I'm sorry?" His accent was thick and his voice quivered slightly from the chill. Now that I was closer, I could see his face in more detail. He was a strange fellow. What I had thought to be a beard was in fact a terribly unkempt goatee, which merged ungracefully with his curly sideburns. His tousled hair was a mess. Oddly enough, his face seemed young, somehow. I had the vague impression that, if it wasn't for the facial hair, I could easily have been looking at a teenage boy. I blinked and told myself it was the light. It made his skin look redder than it really was. "I said, are you lost? Do you need help?" My voice was thin in the cold air. The man stared at me for awhile, and then shook his head. "Oh, no no!" he said, shivering slightly. "I'm not lost, thank you. I'm waiting for someone." His hairy face broke into a small smile. I decided to pursue the matter, more out of conversational habit than genuine curiosity. He seemed to be harmless, after all, and more scared of me than I of him. "Oh?" I said, leaning out the window. He hesitated. "Yes." he said. "I'm waiting for someone." He shifted about in his great-coat. "I need to... I need to tell her that I'm sorry." He suddenly looked very small. "Oh I see." I said, nodding sympathetically. "A girl huh?" "Yes. Her name is Lucy." He looked at me with sad hazel eyes, "We met here, once, at this lamp-post. Could you please tell me where she is?" I looked back at him, slightly alarmed. He thinks I know this girl? I wondered if he was a crazy. "Sorry." I shrugged. "Don't think I've ever met your Lucy before." His deep, brown eyes widened in surprise. "Oh." A small, hard sound. "Oh. It's just that... well, I thought... that is, I imagined all of Adam's would- but no? Ah. I'm sorry, forgive me, I'm sorry." He shifted apologetically, like a little boy caught saying something discourteous. I felt a stab of pity for the poor thing. Out, in the cold, alone, waiting for a lover who probably wouldn't show- he was in a sorry state. On impulse, I reached back into Alison's Secret Sweet-Hiding Place and pulled out a candy, at random. It was a bar of Turkish Delight. Never let it be said that all lawyers are cold-hearted pricks, I thought, and leaned back out the window. "Hey. You look like you could use a snack." At first he looked at me without comprehension. Then, seeing the sweet in my outstretched hand, he rose, unsteadily, to his feet. He wasn't very tall. "Here." I said. "Catch." and threw the candy. He caught it clumsily, stumbling as he did so. From beneath his great-coat, I could hear the sound of his feet on the pavement; a sharp trip-trap, trip-trap sound. What in the world is he using for shoes? I thought, puzzled. Wooden clogs? The little man looked down at the Turkish Delight in his hands, then looked back up at me. His smile was warm and friendly. "Thank you." he said simply. "Don’t mention it. I've got hundreds where that came from." I laughed, thinking of Alison. We looked at each other for awhile. "Well. Good luck with this Lucy." I said, rolling up my window. He nodded his goodbye. As I drove away, I could see him in the rear-view mirror peering curiously at the sweet I had left him. What a bizarre fellow, I thought as I rounded the bend that led up to the driveway. The lights in the house were on, warm glowing promises of refuge in a steadily dying twilight. Alison greeted me at the door, all smiles and laughter as usual, and told me to come to the kitchen quick, and stop Mom from killing the potato salad. That night, the first flakes of winter snow fell soundlessly in the dark. The next morning as I left for work, I passed the spot where the strange man and I had talked. He was gone, of course, and the place didn't seem quite the same without the lamppost's pale yellow light casting shadows everywhere. I looked at the ground as I drove by, slowly. The snow from last night had left a thin layer of white on the pavement. There was no trace that the man had stayed the night- only the footsteps of some hoofed animal imprinted in the soft snow. How odd, I thought as I drove on, heading for the city. I hope he's alright. By the time I had reached the Office, I had forgotten him completely. After all, there were more important things to tend to. I pulled out the legal documents for the divorce settlement and arranged them neatly on the desk. Benjamin Chow is a full-time NSman who writes, sings and acts for the stage.
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