{ based on a dream I had on the night of Friday 4th to Saturday 5th of August 2023 }
Dave is around 70. He was born in Jamaica and emigrated to England with his parents as a teenager in the 1960s. Small in stature, short, slim, spry, Dave's light-brown skin tells of some British great-grandparent. Thinning white hair and full white beard. Yet his most notable characteristic is his ineffable cheerfulness and sparkling eyes.
Dave spent all of his working life - literally every working day - at Heathrow Airport. London Airport as it used to be called back in the day. Manual work - cleaning, carrying. Never said much, but always seeming happy, Dave was popular with his co-workers, even though very few got to know him well. "Lives alone." "Has eight kids by three wives." "Six kids, two wives." "Used to race Formula 3 cars at the weekend." "Played bass with Black Slate." All conjecture. "Does Dave do drugs?" "Acts like a toker - but never seen him blowing weed..." "Never heard him talk of it, neither..." Dave did nothing to unravel nor to promote the mystery of his personal life; he'd dismiss direct questions with a chuckle and a shrug of his shoulders.
He worked on beyond his state pension age - with good workers in short supply, his last boss was more than happy to keep him on, that is, until Covid and lockdown. Then the firm let go of Dave and many of his mates. As soon as the lockdown was over, Dave would return to the airport, now no longer as a worker, but as a visitor. He'd catch the bus down from Sipson to Heathrow Central and would spend the afternoon wandering around from terminal to terminal, groundside only - no longer did he have that security badge - smiling benignly at holidaymakers and business travellers alike, nodding as though he's known them for years.
There's the metaphysical effect of Dave's smile. People who see it immediately feel better; travel anxieties subside, replaced with a sense of peace and joy. Bickering families, hassled executives, burdened airport workers, all noticed a magical easing of negative emotions after making eye contact with smiling Dave. For most, it was a subconscious experience. For some, it was an encounter with a man, a most unremarkably remarkable man that stayed with them for a while, to return in memory flashbacks.
Dave - a quiet miracle worker, going about his way, unproclaimed. You might not have even noticed him as you rushed through Heathrow from check-in to security to gate. Maybe I didn't consciously notice him either, but I did have that dream, and the title of this post was from that dream too.
Dave - an Emissary... but from whom?
This time last year:
Fifty years with Virginia Plain
The Curve (and one's place on it)
Fifty years on, my last kolonia
Grodzisk Mazowiecki's pretty station
This time 11 years ago:
Exorcism outside the President's Palace
This time 12 years ago:
The raging footsoldier - a story about anger
This time 13 years ago:
Graffiti and street art
I met such a man on Sunday at a garden pub by the Isis in North Oxford on Sunday. He came and sat near myself and friends. We got chatting and he introduced himself as Llewelyn. My friend remembered that she knew him from the free meditation that the Brahma Kumaris run in Oxford every month. He had that special spiritual shine, but it was not God in the conventional sense, as might be the case with Dave. On my travels in Malawi, I met Mr Juma, who was head carpenter on a small estate, and I worked with him for 3 weeks teaching him some of my English ways of wood crafting. Every morning at 6 we would have an hour long prayer meeting with about 100 workers before we lifted our tools. Mr Juma also had that quality, and helped people in the wider community who were suffering hardship.
ReplyDeleteRichard
@ Ricardo -
ReplyDeleteMany thanks for your contribution, which makes me think about the remarkable people that from time to time drift across one's life path, leaving an influence. Is this just random, or is this destiny?
Spirituality and daily human work, hand in hand.