I went outside to smoke a cigarette. All rooms in England are for non-smokers, you’ll find, as are the rooms, apartments, and houses listed for rent in the local papers. The litany at the end of all the ads reads, “No smokers, canvassers, or DSS”, which stands for Department of Social Services. So, okay they hate smokers and welfare cases, as do we all. But the British have their own definition for ‘non-smoker’, which basically means you only smoke when you drink. Everybody smokes over here, and they all live somewhere.

The evening was cool; almost cold, really, as I suspect the evenings around here generally are. I stood on the corner of Osborne and Netley, watching the blackbirds getting ready to do whatever it is they do at night, when I spied a man, some yards away, bounding up the sidewalk with a jaunty gait. I held my cigarette just in front of my mouth, watching this figure with suspicion. He was short, about 5 feet tall, and round as a soccer ball. He was wearing light-colored trousers and a dark blazer, the left breast of which was adorned with an enormous, orange prize-ribbon.

As he approached me, his features became distinct in the bad lighting, and I realized he was positively beaming with pride. His face was ruddy, and split with a grin that wouldn’t have looked out of place behind a wheelbarrow full of poker chips on the way to the cash-out. I placed him in his mid-40s, but maybe his thinning red hair and roly-poly stature made him look older than he really was.

He halted just a few feet from me, and said, with oddly struggling words, “Good evening, mister!”

I looked him up and down, cigarette still burning between my shaky fingers, and replied, “hi, how are ya...” He wobbled his head a bit, then walked around me on his way up the street. I noticed something written in gold on his orange ribbon, and read it as it flashed in the lamplight.

I judged him more than a wee bit ‘differently-abled’, as they say. I watched as he cautiously crossed the empty street, looking both ways at least twice, then gingerly stepping into the street and crossing it at a run.

I thought about what I had seen written on the ribbon: “A Very Special Boy”. Hmm, I thought, I wonder who gave him that? Whoever it was, they made his whole day.

I put my cigarette out and walked back into the guest house.