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I tend to walk home after I go out clubbing, mainly because it is cheap and I am cheaper. Students have no money and also no qualms over not splashing out on silly things like Taxis and expensive bars and clubs. I like walking because it’s slow, and it freshens your mind after a night out. People seem to love jumping into a smelly, dangerous taxi, driven by men who in their case have no qualms over breaking the speed limits by multiples of ten miles an hour. It’s scary to sit in a taxi at 3AM, hurtling down an ‘A’ road at 70 miles an hour, just only dodging the neighbouring car. I don’t like it, I have little spare cash, and I like walking, so I walk.
The benefit of walking being slow is that you see things. When I’m looking for things to take photos of I always like walking because you notice details of the world around you that others may not have done, and so I think you get a richer experience from going to the places you go.
On Friday night I went out to celebrate/mourn the promotion and so departure of a friend from this city and the store that he worked within. He’s moving up to more northerly lands, soon to be greeted by girls with increasingly smaller clothes as the days get colder. I’m following him, but to another city even further north.

As I walk home I’m aware of not becoming another crime statistic, as one friend was warned off after being stopped when walking home one night by the police. With the withdrawal from the thumpa-thumpa music and the shouts of dancers you become acutely aware of all noises around. A twig snaps behind me and I notice, a taxi flies past and I notice not it but the air rushing around it, dancing dust and leaves left in its wake. As I walked on Friday night which was really early Saturday morning, I saw a man lying prostrate under a tree, lying on short grass on his back about two yards from the street. It was dark and the continual stream of twenty taxis and then one police car did not spot him there. I was walking alone so, to be honest, I didn’t want to spot him there.
My first thought was to approach him and see if he was well, to see if he was alive because I didn’t see movement. My second thought was, ‘I’m alone’. Personal safety is a poor excuse, but I didn’t approach him. I called the police. Not emergency, but the standard police enquiries number.
I asked them what to do and they asked me whether I’d seen movement. They were hoping this would be as simple as I was. I wanted him to be a drunkard who’d stumbled home in the middle of the night and just crashed under a tree. With the words of Paul ringing in my head from his staggering-home-drunk warning, I thought, ‘Is he a crime statistic?’

Just at that moment his arm moved so I tell them this and I tell them that I haven’t approached him yet because I’m on my own. They tell me, to my great relief, not to approach him that they will send an ambulance. They take my contact details and quickly hang up. I wanted them to stay on the line because I had questions:
‘REALLY?! Don’t approach him?’
‘Do I stay or do I go?’
‘What if he’s dead?’
‘Did I do the right thing?’

I didn’t get to ask them questions because they were on to the next patient and I was just their last call, a voice in the night down the end of a phone. I was there for answers, not for questions. For this and reasons I don’t really know, I walked on. I figured I couldn’t actually tell them anything more without approaching the man. I don’t know what I was fearing but I was perhaps fearing that I’d have to get involved, that it’d get messy, that it wouldn’t be over and done and simple. So I walked on, and before I lost line of sight with the location I saw an ambulance and police car pull up to where I’d directed them. I couldn’t see the little figures in fluorescent jumpsuits walking around, but they were no doubt there.

The next day I was praying for a phone call, for a knock on the door or a letter through the mailbox. Nothing came.

I hope the man is alright. I hope he’s alive.