text: Otto sat on the park bench with a shopping trolley of books beside him. On his lap a book lay open on chapter 5. It was a thick book with time-stained pages. He had fallen asleep in the spring sun. I was glad it was sunny; he had spent one too many cold and rainy nights in the open. Otto had become homeless some 20 years before. He often exclaimed, and proudly, it had been out of choice, but his sadness told of another story. I sat down beside him and waited for him to rouse. His smell was not pleasant, he preferred to read than to look to bathe every day, his work being more mental than physical he claimed never to break a sweat. It was another half hour before he woke. I had almost left, he was sleeping so soundly I had to check he was still breathing, such a peaceful moment he was in. The sun was beginning its descent, colouring peach into the clouds and giving everyone a wonderful golden glow. Otto raised his head, opened wide his mouth and eyes, and let out a loud yell oh! Then laughed and laughed until all he could do was cough. As his choking died down, he still chuckled. The passers by looked at him, some clutching tighter to their partners, others laughing, one woman even prayed. One of these ‘waking calls’ was what drew me to talk to him. He was an intellectual with a mind of wonder, one could listen to him for hours asking questions and finding ways of answering them together. He did not like to claim he was right about anything except humour. Otto decided during the war that humanity had no sense of humour. How could they when such atrocities are allowed to happen? He found laughter a medicine and would often break into a joke halfway through a philosophical conversation, a joke with no baring to the topic at hand I may add. He was an extraordinary fellow and spoke the stories he had read as if he had written them himself. I asked him what he was currently reading. He faced up to the sky and said I was not ready for this story. He, himself was forced into a meditation of sorts for which he was not prepared. The words in the pages, he said, seemed to fly out of the paper and hit the mind. He had been reading it for five months now, and each time the meditations (what I presumed sleep) intensified. He never once looked at me. I asked if he had eaten anything to which he replied with a shrug. I took an orange from my bag and placed it beside him “for later” I said. Then I noticed something peculiar about the books in the trolley, none of them had titles. There was no writing on any of the covers, not even the author’s name. “Please don’t ask me about my books.” Otto snapped This brought about a moment of silence I felt most uncomfortable with. I began to stand, when he placed his hand on my arm and sat me back down. “I am blind Sir, and these books are my eyes. I have learnt to feel my way through this sightless life without a soul knowing of my difficulty and I have I fooled them. Until today, you Sir are the first to notice the lack of letters upon the pages.