The Lantern Walk

The Joker said we were going on a walk, and that we weren't allowed to look at anything that was trying to be looked at.

I asked what that meant.

He said, no adverts, no screens, no shop windows that are shouting. Only the things that are just there, being themselves.

I said that sounded hard. He said that was the point. He gave me a little lantern to carry, even though it was daytime, and he said it was for noticing.

So off we went. Here's everything I noticed.

The crack in the pavement

The first thing was a crack in the pavement, and in the crack there was a flower.

A tiny yellow one. Nobody planted it. It just decided to grow there, in the smallest space, with people walking past it all day.

I knelt down to look. The Joker knelt down too. A man stepped around us and gave us a funny look.

The Joker whispered, he doesn't know about the flower. We do.

I liked knowing about the flower. It felt like a secret the pavement had told us.

The bus driver who waited

At the bus stop, a lady was running for the bus. She had a lot of bags and she wasn't very fast.

The bus was about to go. And then it didn't. The driver waited. He opened the doors again, and she got on, out of breath, and said thank you, thank you.

He just nodded, like it was nothing.

I asked the Joker if bus drivers are supposed to wait. He said no, not always. He said there's usually a timetable, and the timetable says go.

So why did he wait?

The Joker said, because some people still remember that the bus is for people, not for the timetable.

I wanted to clap. I didn't, because it would have been strange. But I clapped a little bit inside.

The man and the pigeons

In the square there was an old man on a bench, and he was feeding the pigeons.

He had a paper bag of crumbs, and he was talking to the pigeons, very quietly. Not in a silly voice. In a proper voice, like you'd talk to a friend.

I asked the Joker what he was saying to them. The Joker said he didn't know, and it was probably none of our business.

But I thought it was nice that the pigeons had someone to talk to. And I thought it was nice that the man had someone to talk to too.

Maybe that's why he comes every day. Maybe it's not really about the crumbs.

The window with the cat

There was a window above a shop with a cat sitting in it.

A big orange cat, just sitting, watching everyone go by. Every so often it blinked very slowly.

The Joker said the Cheshire would like this cat. He said they'd get on.

I said the cat looked like it knew everything. The Joker said, cats usually do. They just don't bother telling anyone.

I waved at the cat. It blinked at me. I'm fairly sure that means hello in cat.

The children drawing on the ground

Further on, there were some children drawing on the ground with chalk.

They'd drawn a long, wiggly road, with houses next to it, and a big sun, and a dog that was bigger than the houses. Somebody had drawn a door in the middle of the road. Just a door, standing on its own.

I asked what the door was for. One of the children said, it's a door to somewhere else.

I asked where. She said, you have to open it to find out.

The Joker laughed and said that was the cleverest thing anybody had said all week.

We stepped through the chalk door, both of us, one at a time. Nothing happened. But it felt like something happened.

The music from the open window

As we walked down a little street, somebody was playing a piano.

Not very well. They kept stopping and starting again from the same bit. It was a sad, slow tune, and every time they got to the tricky part, they made a mistake, and stopped, and went back.

But they kept going. Again and again. The tricky part, the mistake, back to the start.

I asked the Joker if we should go, since it wasn't very good.

He said, no. Listen. This is what trying sounds like.

So we stood there for a while. And the last time, they got the tricky part right. All the way through.

I don't know who it was. But I hope they heard us clapping. This time I clapped on the outside.

The lady at the library desk

We went into the library to get warm.

The lady at the desk was helping an old man with a computer. He couldn't make it work and he was getting cross with it. Not with her. With the computer.

She didn't hurry him. She showed him, slowly, which button to press. Then she showed him again. Then she let him do it himself, and when it worked, he smiled a huge smile, like a little boy.

She smiled too.

I asked the Joker if that's her job. He said, part of it. The other part she does because she wants to.

I think the other part is the most important part of anybody's job.

The tree that was older than everything

Outside the library there was a big old tree. Its trunk was so wide that the Joker and I couldn't reach around it, even holding hands.

I asked how old it was. The Joker said probably older than the library, older than the road, older than anyone who walks past it.

I put my hand on it. It was rough and a bit cold.

I thought about all the people who'd walked past this tree. Thousands. Maybe millions. Running for buses, carrying shopping, worrying about things. And the tree just stood there the whole time, growing very slowly, not worrying about anything.

I asked the Joker if trees worry. He said, not that anyone's noticed.

I'd like to be a little bit more like the tree.

The thing I didn't see

On the way home, I noticed something else. Something I didn't see.

I didn't see anybody looking at any of the things we saw.

The flower, the bus driver, the man with the pigeons, the cat, the chalk door, the piano, the library lady, the tree. They were all there, just being themselves, and almost everybody walked straight past them, looking down, or looking at their phones, or looking at the shop windows that were shouting.

I told the Joker. He said, yes. That's why I gave you the lantern.

He said the world is full of good things, but the good things don't shout. The shouting things are mostly trying to sell you something. The good things are just there, waiting for someone to notice.

The lantern

When we got back to the House, I asked the Joker if I could keep the lantern.

He said yes. He said it was never really a lantern anyway. It was just a reminder.

A reminder of what?

That you get to choose what you look at, he said. Most people forget. The shouting things try very hard to make you forget. But you get to choose.

So now I keep it on the shelf by my bed.

And tomorrow, when you go outside, you could try it too. You don't need a real lantern. You just need to remember the rule.

Don't look at anything that's trying to be looked at. Only the things that are just there, being themselves.

You'll find a flower in a crack. I promise. There's always one somewhere.

The Joker says so, and he's usually right about flowers.