AT THE CASHPOINT

At the cashpoint adjacent College Green and the bottom of Park Street a man begging sitting on the ground with his back to the wall asked if I could spare any change and I gave him what I had.
He said, ‘thanks,’ and asked, ‘had a good day?’
‘I’ve had better...
...you?’
He sat looking in the direction of up Park Street and didn’t answer I thought because he hadn’t heard me ask as I put my card in and PIN but when the noise of the traffic passed he said, ‘I’m alive.’
‘That’s good is it?’ I said.
‘Yeh, when I was younger I had a social worker who said, “as long as you’re alive there’re possibilities in this life” that’s what he said.’
‘They useful those words?’
‘Yeh, but the sad thing is six days after I last saw him they found him dead four days after he died.’
‘That’s a long time,’ I said with a memory of the man in the flat next to mine they didn’t find and then only because the smell got so bad three weeks after he od’d one summer.
‘Yeh, no one cared but I’ve not forgot what he said.’
I finished at the cashpoint and walking off past him said, ‘bye.’
‘Yeh, cheers man, have a nice day.’