“Very well, good day to you.” The tradesman led his cart on past the beggar, even his horse seemed to study the man with disdain. The beggar was used to receiving not even a word from those who passed him by, just a stare and a sneer. But he always had the grace to leave them with a kind word. “I forgive you,” he uttered under his breath to the tradesman. A silent gesture of camaraderie that was heard by no-one.

As the noon day sun crept over the sky, burning all but the mad and the desperate from the wide open streets of Athens, the beggar could just make out the form of the cripple coming towards him. He knew that every step, every motion created a blinding pain within the body of this man, yet here he was, hobbling up the cobbled streets and smiling like a fool at the sight of the beggar. “My friend, it has been a long time since we have seen you on these streets,” the cripple sat, or rather, fell next to him.

“I have been on a long journey little man.”

“What have you seen?”

“I have seen too much. And I have learned very little. There seems to be no end to the similarities of men, wherever they may be, yet an eternal diversity to them. Tied together, a living paradox.”

“You still talk strange I see, like your friend.”

“He is not my friend anymore.”

“You have fallen out with that crazy homosexual?”

“Not so much fallen out as lost touch. He passed away but a few months ago now.” The cripple shifted awkwardly in his seat. “Or perhaps you have already heard.”

“Something that I took to be connected. I don’t listen to people that well, as you know. Listening to people is what gets you to where we are now.” The beggar smiled fondly at this. The cripple was not a man for deep conversation, but he was capable of producing a blinding insight from time to time. He drew a hand across his brow to wipe away the perspiration, but the dirt on his hand grated at his tender, burnt skin and he winced.

“Other people can speak, but that homosexual spoke better than any man I have heard before or since.”

“Better than any man,” the beggar agreed. The two men fell into silence. It was many moments before it was broken.

“Come,” the cripple said. “Men have died in this heat, you already are falling into a trancelike condition, soon you will be like your friend, no?” The beggar smiled at this and helped the cripple to his feet. The two men walked west.