That relentless, crashing tide of civilisation had beat its cold, hard progress against him for the last time, leaving him broken, washed up and churned out here…chased out here.

Chased out by a mob too indifferent to form, chased by the silent, faceless ghosts sitting opposite him during each grey commute. By the knowledge that he himself was also haunting these streets of smeared wet grey.

So out here he was not soothed just by the immense wash of colour, but rather the absence of that all encompassing grey. As the hills of green and purple washed him clean, that incessant scream of loneliness fell beside to be replaced by his contented sighs of peace.

A tension carried for so long, its water logged cloak draped about his frame, the weight from endless years now fell from shoulders which, now free, rose to greet the blue above, as though willing his newly lighted form to soar with those dancing birds above.

Aching cheeks host a grin manically fighting for balance on this unfamiliar ground, his heart aches and for a fleeting second he mistakes it for sorrow, as that is the only spark of emotion his dreary life could produce for so long but no, it’s joy which bring tears brimming to his eyes.