He dressed eccentrically at the most, with striped trousers and a top hat bowler. And a long coat and gaudy shirt. His eyeglasses would swing on a chain, and his cane would hang from a limp arm, almost like that famous painter.

The good doctor, his old-fashioned kindness until the end, the liquor consuming him, and the water filling his lungs during the summer of ‘78, the bridge, a vantage point for his despair, the snuff box from his father, safe and secure in his long coat pocket.

four days to find him,
alone on a riverbank,
the playschool children.