Working Lunch

impossible songs

impossible songs

Secret Eye

Once again I met with the Secret Eye in a small Chinese restaurant in the port of Rosyth. Thankfully the rain had stopped. At first I listened intently to his opening tales, there was light and there was new colour, but as lunch progressed they became increasingly far fetched and my interest waned. My attention span has never been particularly strong – as I’m sure you must know. I munched through Crispy Wan Tan as he began to bore me with details I didn’t need to hear, I trawled the fork around the dry plate of my main course, (Red-neck of chicken) and felt myself stumble into one fuzzy day dream after another. It was becoming a long meal.

Finally when we reached the banana fritter stage, the Secret Eye began to share with me some of his more relevant and up to date information. He had inside knowledge (he believed), he said he had contacts, he had capability and he had taken notes. His jigsaw puzzle description fell from its open box and was scattered across the patterned table cloth. I recognised many of the pieces and though I had not seen them for a long time I could still make sense of their shapes and place them accurately together. The Secret Eye said, “This is what I have seen, you have it and now my work is over, what you do now with these pieces is your affair.” I thanked the Secret Eye and passed across the customary forty pieces of silver, a fair wage for a job well done. “So what do you plan to do next?” he asked me. I just laughed and took a sip from my orange juice. “There is no next, there are no actions to take, these puzzle pieces don’t belong here with me or with you,” I said. “Take your money and spend it for the good of your lifestyle, then take your information and hide it away forever, like dogs bury bones and postmen lose letters. Think of how climbers hang from ropes and petals float and how the woodpecker feeds from the tree bark. Swing a little in some warm summer breeze and relax about life.”

As we rose from the table and settled the bill an ambulance sped past on the road outside. Its siren was blaring and its blue lights were flashing. “We don’t know who is in there,” said the Secret Eye. I looked at him directly and whispered, “I know, but you need not worry, for it is just another lost angel that you can never now know”.