Smiling The While

You remember him, don't you? Yes, of
course you most certainly do, and you recall
with a certainty of vision, despite all the
years that have passed, his wife as well. They
were once so often seen in this place you
still return to day after day. They were both
special, not in the sense of being in any way
whatever charismatic, since they shared the
character trait of quiet modesty. They were
however, the most decent people you can
ever have imagined, and for that gained the
respect that anyone who knew them was more
than prepared to grant them, yourself included.
The many intervening years aside he looks
just the same, unprepossessing, but despite
the hiatus in greeting one another he too
remembers me, graciously smiling as I
look deep into those pools revealing the
soul of the man taken back to an old haunt
his wife busy at home, baking. There is
something slightly unsettling about this
chance encounter. Thought of them came
unbidden to mind a day before, and suddenly
there he is! Buy a lottery ticket, he urged me
broadly smiling as I recounted this to him.