Up In Smoke...

...Infrequent, as you know, are my forays to Town. Not my sort of place at all, too many unhappy angry people jostling for space. So many sad, mad stares; mumbled voices of grizzly protest at some perceived injustice. A desperate sense of imminent violent outburst. And all that before even one alights from the train!

But go one must on occasions. The Bearded Bard does so like keeping close to the front-line that he must from time to time summons the troops for a purposeful chat about 'Whither This...' or 'Whether That...' And he being the one whilst we are legion, it does of course make logistical sense for us to travel to him rather than for he to assay some mighty, endless round of visitations.

Also thereby minimising the risk the bearded one should ever come a-knocking on the Rectory door some unannounced, unexpected and generally unwelcomed evening. If that sounds harsh and not a tad uncharitable to an honoured guest, it is more a sound notion that should he ever thus appear out of the blue then H, E and I would all fall at once into a terrible funk, rushing round the place to iron the spare bedding or slaughter a fatted calf, whilst the while casting a mental eye over the Parish accounts to check they were not too egregiously muddled to pass muster or audit. (He wouldn't care to be the cause of so much frenzy, nor we to be the frenzied.)

So to Town one travelled, practising the engaged and thoughtful yet questioning with a twist of concerned look that we clerics tend to adopt when confronted with a subject of which we know little and care less. (Non-Exec Board members could learn much from their local pastors.)

Chat duly done (one does not linger, it was something about re-engagement through innovation or innovation through re-engagement - one or the other I forget quite which) I hastened to treat myself to a visit to the most tiny, poky and gorgeous old emporium of all things tobacco, in order to recharge the pipe jars with a suitable mix of wondrous fragrances, aromas and tastes. I could - and often do - have these items posted up-country like a Somerset Maughan demi-hero taking supplies from the river station, but a chance given to visit in person is a chance taken.

One used, before these beastly new laws of prohibition, to sit and sample; to puff a small Churchwarden of best baccy before buying. Now sadly of course one may not and purchases are reduced to the merely functional - an ounce of this and a twist of that, if you please.

Chat though has yet to be banned - it will surely come, soon no doubt conversation between two consenting adults will be revealed to be highly carcinogenic - and thus ordinarily a certain light banter on the downward spiral of the world and all its ways would lace the moment.

Not yesterday though. Oh no it didn't at all. Poor X - a lugubrious cove at the best of times - was totally down at mouth and out of sorts. Not a smile flickered, not a light josh flittered. 'Til, indeed, at the asking of a generalised question on the potency of a certain Turkish blend came the astonishing reply "Frankly Sir, I really have absolutely no interest in the matter whatsoever."

Well, knock me down with a pipe spill! One at once sensed that this rebuff signalled not a narrow personal disinterest in a boringly dull customer - as indeed one might have so been perceived - but more an utter world weariness and an aching of a torn soul.

"We've all just been given our redundancy notices, Sir. The shop is to close at the end of the year. I have served loyally for X long years and at the advancing age of X have little if any prospect of future employment. All, after all, may come to nothing and be lost."

O Lord. How one mourned for the fellow. Has happened to Bro. Geo. twice these past ten years (the first time on a Christmas Eve of all things rotten!), and one knows how much it hurts. A real pain of rejection and loss, a terrible sense of unwantedness, all coupled to an absolute fright about what if anything a future might hold.

The jars are filled, but the pipe remains unlit. Cannot quite yet face a good smoke thinking of the poor fellow and his uncertain fate.