Nil Desperandum

It was cold and wet and there he was, sitting on a park bench, sorting his worldly posessions into a plastic bag. A book of poetry, a comb, darned socks, a grubby shirt and seventy cents. I said, 'G'day mate, what's your name? ' He answered, 'Hope.' SEQUEL The park bench was there, but not the man who called himself, Hope. Had he become, as Greek philosophers describe, a last despair? I asked some fellow passers-by if they'd seen him. 'Who? ' they asked. A rough and ready said, 'Mate, there ain't no hope - never was.' But a dog-eared book of poetry, a comb, darned socks, a grubby shirt, and seventy cents inside a plastic bag suggested otherwise.