Picture Perfect
You see a busy stream of traffic pass by your window and can hear only angry hoots and snarls. The news is full of rising prices and shrinking commodities. There is anger and competition for scarce resources everywhere. Eyes are blind and faces shut in. Roads are for cars and unhurried simple living has walked on. Imagine your surprise when just for a brief while, people get off the merry-go-round and are willing to stare!
This happened sometime ago in my neighbourhood:
It was just another day- another jam. An auto stopped at a busy junction. A man got off- scruffy-just a labourer, you would have thought. An empty lot waiting for a building, Full of rubble and overgrown grass- a comma in space-choked bustle. The roar of traffic shut down as people watched and drawn like zombies, crowded round , while on the wall of the abandoned lot, two small girls and a boy walked into the unknown over a bridge, under swaying palm trees- brought to life in chalk by a great but unknown artist.
The picture done, the Unknown walked back to the auto and was swallowed by the traffic, ignoring the offers which poured in for him to replicate the picture on other walls. But the procession of viewers continued late into the night and well into the following week. This city still has some surprises up her sleeve!
