There was a man sleeping on the pavement today, all covered up in a dirty threadbare grey shawl. I don't even know if it was a man, nothing could be seen but a dirty tousled head and a big toe. But it probably was. And I don't know why I remember him, but I do. He was just sleeping there, peacefully, among the noisy theatre road, cars honking merrily into his ears, but he just went on being asleep. That tired, I suppose. I wonder how he went about it even. Whether he stopped on a walk right in the middle of the footpath and said, Enough, not one step further. Or maybe he scanned the footpath all along that road, and carefully picked out that spot for some merit that I failed to see. Perhaps, with his expert eye, he noticed that it was relatively cleaner than the other parts of pavement surrounding it. And then he'd squat on his spot, and then stretch out his legs, and stretch, and yawn. And then he unfolded his precious dirty grey -can't quite call it a blanket- covering, and then drape it over himself, and the end over his head, and then murmur his Do Not Disturb to the world- he could hardly expect them to stop honking their horns or yelling at jaywalkers- it wouldn't be fair. And then our determined sleeper would just lie down there and sleep. He made up his mind that he would, and he did. Amidst the din, which couldn't really have bothered him much, or he'd have chosen a quieter street. But he chose this one, and the middle of the right-hand side footpath before two o'clock on this street, as his bed. And you might still find him there, with everyone walking carefully around him, not minding him very much, going on with their lives. He doesn't have social workers breathing down his neck, or moralists telling him to get a job and a life. Not yet, anyway. And so the current down the footpath finds it's way around him, and goes on. As they always have, and always will.

'I shall lay me down in peace and sleep'.

Amen.