Igor Clark

We wonder how this might have come about. Of course the reason might easily have been as simple as that the TV star was hungry, angry with the homeless man (damn those homeless men), or merely criminally insane; one can’t help but wonder, however, whether there might not have been a deeper and altogether more fascinating scenario at the root of this regrettable occurrence (assuming, of course, that it was regretted and not vaunted). Perhaps the TV star had also become homeless and stumbled into a biting episode arising from a territorial dispute over begging rights with another member of the homeless fraternity (or indeed sorority)? Or maybe, just maybe, there exists a secret society whose members are all TV stars happily paying to attend staged fights between homeless men in (temperature-controlled) empty swimming pools in the basements of Barratt mansions secreted deep in Epping forest? Perhaps the TV star was so incensed at the loss of one such fight by the homeless man he or she had sponsored with a significant display of fiscal confidence that the bite was simply one of frustration? Or maybe - just maybe - the TV star, once a keen participant in such light-hearted leisure activities, might have fallen from grace, losing a coveted spot on “Celebrity Bastard Squad” following a mysterious incident with a turkey and a Cumbrian rapist, collapsing via a glut of explosively lurid coverage ultimately into a desolate morass of anonymous obscurity, eventually ending up, in a staggering and of course entirely unexpected dénouement, fighting for coins in the cellar of his replacement’s crypto-Wimpey pile?

We may never know.

The sun sneaks its way ’round the back. The wheels just keep on turning, and the great mechanic they power hums apace; objective, indifferent, yet ultimately inspiring our tiny hearts, setting the scene for a fresh focus. Time takes its toll on our fragile frames, yes, on our rosy lips and cheeks; but also on our yokes of care. With every inch of each revolution, disappointments dissolve into distance; with each step of every rotation, losses themselves lose their very sting. “Oh, mundane earthly matters”, as my Dad had Galdós put it: “you are not worth a single sigh”. And so we rise, though sometimes our spirits sag, and this universal marker, this covenant of continuity, on greeting us grants a glimpse of how transitory are our tribulations; and so we forge, a degree more fixed, ahead. So it goes.