Charles Smith Monologue

It happened a long time ago… I was here in Sydney, Australia with my first real job; 15 years have passed since then... It stayed in my mind for a long time, that one cold, grey and gloomy winter’s day outside that block of flats. It mustn't have been before 3 o’clock. It makes it hard now to forget what happened to the Papadopoulos family; Where did they go? What did they do? I think about them living out of town... as I, myself am here living in the harbour... begging for food from any unsuspecting sailor that passes by. This of lack confidence within me is like an elephant without a stomach … what about the future, what am I going to eat? What’s the weather going to do? Will I die like my parents … from the bubonic plague? Bitten by fleas, that travel on mice, rats and some even say
birds like parrots...
“No, African parrots,” I remembered myself saying
“Open the cage,” they said
Oh, if I could find one of those little rascals, now how fortunate it would be. The flesh cooked or raw would be like filling a mere morsel of a starving dog’s stomach!
“No dogs,” I told them
“Turn the dogs loose,” he said.
Oh, if only I could find one of them, what luck it, I would have of stumbling across one…would they remember me? Don’t fleas live on dogs? What about the plague? Why didn’t their Children catch it?
“No children…there is a special rule...you see...”
The Papadopoulos family seemed to understand the circumstances, although I will never forget the face that Mr Papadopoulos wore on that fatal day, filled with unwanted and thousands of questions for me. I can imagine him now; laughing at me, mocking me, hating me. With his thriving farm out of town. If only I could have one, just one of his fattened cows, it would get me out of this horrid state.
Why I ask myself time and time again. Why did I say, “Sorry, no Greeks” Why? Why? Why?
I guess it’s because that’s what the landlord demanded from us, why didn’t I just not tell him they were Greeks.
Now in 1968 I am stuck on the shore line with nothing but the clothes I am wearing.
“Why did I, Charles Smith have to be a Real Estate Agent?”
“Why did the Australian Government lift the ‘White Australia Policy’?”
“Why did Mr Papadopoulos want to sue me?”
“Why didn’t I see it coming?”
“How stupid am I?”
“How was it possible for me to lose so much?”
“Should I work for him?”
“What is going to stop me!!”
It only happened a mere one and a half decades ago: surely he wouldn’t remember me? I learned a lot on that day when the sun decided to frown all day long even as we stood outside that block of flats. At least I can now truly say that I was sorry for what I did. I believe that God will answer my prayers and forgive me for all I have done.
Finally here at Sydney Harbour walking through the cold shade, of the Botanical Gardens, hugging me from the extreme heat of Sydney's Summer. Today one of the Australian Naval Vessels is arriving next to my trustworthy shack that I call home, at the Garden Islands.
“I’m poor, food for the poor.” I ask the sailors disembarking as if the Majesty herself was watching.
“Money for the poor?... anyone, anyone?”
Someone flicked a gold coin in my
direction...