Friday 29th June

Friday the 29th of June was memorable for one reason; it changed my life.

As I walked out of the office, where I worked, at five pm, as I did every day, a complete stranger, an old man, approached me. He had bloodshot eyes, grey hair and was wearing clothes that had not been washed in a long time. My first impressions were the same as, I’m sure most people would be. He was a drunk, a bum, a waster and not the sort of person I would like to be seen or associated with.

He came up to my face and asked me a question. "Did you hear that?" "What" I replied, a little surprised at the man and his confidence to walk up to a complete stranger "That Bumble Bee"? After a brief moment to fully appreciate what he said I once again replied, "What are you on about?" By now I was loosing patience, and rightfully so. It was late Friday afternoon, I had just finished work and all I wanted do was go home.

"Come over here" the old man continued, walking towards a group of flowers blooming in the street. I followed. It may have been curiosity or it may have been the fact that I was so tired from a weeks work to think straight, but I followed. "You see", he said pointing to the flowers "a Bumble Bee".

"That’s amazing," I said, genualy shocked and surprised at the sight of the bee gathering nectar in the flowers, "how did you hear that?" After all this was rush hour in the middle of the city. "Simple" he replied, "I was listening for it. You see people hear what they want to listen to".

"What, I can’t believe that" was my response to this mans obvious talent for hearing. "There’s no way a person with a normal sense of hearing can hear something like that".

"You think" he replied, "have you got any spare change?" Ahh, I thought, we had got to the point. The man wanted money, he’d shown me some sort of trick and now he wanted paying for it. I pulled out of my pocket a handful of change. "Here you go fella," I said, happily handing over the money.

With that he took hold of the money and dropped it on the street floor, half the block turned their heads to look. "You see" he continued, "the sound of a few coins hitting the floor isn’t that much louder than a Bumble Bee, but those people wanted to hear it. They wanted to hear the sound of money".

The old man picked the coins up of the floor, handed it back to me and said "remember, people here what they want to hear". With that he then turned, walked and before I knew it, he had diapered. I was stunned.

It’s been said that people life changing experiences every day but chose to ignore them. This may be true, and I may self have probably closed my eyes to a number of similar experiences, but this one I will always remember. It may seem small, it may even seem pointless, but I will never forget it or the old man and the lesson he taught me on that Friday afternoon on the 29th of June.