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< a nice quiet bloke | posted at 8:35 am on July 07, 2005 > hello.strange thing happened a few nights ago. i was having dinner with friends in the suburb andrew lives in, so naturally instead of going home i walked to his place afterwards. we were there only a few minutes giggling over the cover of the white pages � as one of my friends is on the cover � when we got a very startling rap on the door. i said, �are you expecting anyone?� and he said �no,� puzzled, and went out to answer it. the man outside was neatly dressed, possibly in his early 40s, with a longish beard (but not unkempt) and a red baseball cap. he started stuttering terribly to andrew, unintelligibly at first and then as time went by much more coherently. he said �i � i � does � downstairs � does anyone live downstairs?� (meaning the basement apartment under andrew�s terrace which is currently undergoing renovations) and explained that he wanted to use the space in front of the basement apartment (ie. kind of like undercover tiled area thing) to sleep in. he kept saying, �i�m not going to break in or anything, i�m a nice quiet bloke� and explained that he was sleeping a little while away but it was dangerous, people leave syringes around and he didn�t like a lot of the people around there. he�d obviously made an effort to present himself well. he explained that because he earned a little bit of money, and he was on a pension, he couldn�t sleep in a shelter, and the place that he could sleep was still almost $200 a fortnight and he couldn�t afford that. andrew asked if he had any family, and he said �no, they�re all dead, they�re all dead.� so of course we said sure, sleep down there, we don�t care, but builders come to renovate at seven in the morning every day, so be wary of that. and every night since as we are lying in bed we hear a little click of the gate opening and shutting downstairs, and we know it�s him. he was obviously just a really unlucky guy who didn�t have any of the privileges and opportunities that we get and bad luck had befallen him. it was so sad. we talked to him for about 30 minutes before going back inside, and then felt very very lucky to be inside, and also to be inside with someone that we loved. otherwise, i am on deadline. i just wanted to share that story with you. and this update: my gums bleed when i brush my teeth, i really really erally want to see war of the worlds, andrew and my tickets are booked for our trip to his homeland in september, everything went ok at uni and with the magazine barcode but the credit card still hasn�t been paid, i�m moving in three weeks. those last five |