Take what you can gather from coincidence

A curious but ultimately hopeful day with a fat cold sun. For example I bump into two people I have not seen in years. The first is a writer whose work now features with fetching regularity on many a bookshelf. (I knew him when he was a supportive but distant figure generous enough about something or another I wrote about my first experiences of the war zone.) The second is an artist, a painter, who painted the tall sets in my attempt at a play set on a fictitious and freshly invaded Polynesian island in the city of the scraped skies across the ocean. (He was also a boon companion.) It was strange, because I wasn't thinking about myself. On both occasions, I was actually gunning in my mind for the artist, who was still perplexed, like unrewarded talent, by the lack of communication on the part of the gallerist, the only gallerist to have been allowed to see - and who enjoyed - the new body of work. I was in the centre of the capital when I bumped into the writer. He approached from the left, a tall silhouette, and exuded the calm authority of someone who knows he is read. We talked about the war zone and I gave my opinion. His eyes had the sparkle I remembered and his wit was warm and melodic. It was a bit like having your brain coated with words. We talked about someone we knew in common, a good friend of his and someone I admire. This person works in film and TV. The writer at this point said he could never work in film or TV because there were simply too many people whose permission or blessing was required in order to get anything done. No, he said he much preferred being a writer and could for example go home now and write a novel about the war zone if he so wished. There was an element of mischief in his words and I enjoyed them all. I spoke about the artist and said with a tight gesture of my hand and fingers her work was extremely detailed. Again playfully he asked if that meant she drew everything on a grain of rice. Anyway, a few hours later, after a meeting with an animator and director whose measured opinion I sought on some technical matter, I am walking out of my local overland railway station and about to climb the slow steep hill home when slamming into me at speed comes the second blast from the past, the artist, the painter, like a missile. Amazingly it turns out he is now my neighbour and when we walk across the open land between the station and our flat together it is as if I am having a dream in which my old friend from across the ocean is walking with me across the open land between the station and our flat. I talk about the artist and he tells me about his partner. (They share the same name.) When I get home I tell the artist about all this but she is still at a loss about the gallerist. I suggest she texts her.

'So sorry i haven't got back to you yet,' the gallerist texts back: 'if it's okay ill call you first thing tomorrow. Hope alls well with you and the family, all the best.'

And then she leaves her name.