He had left the hospital and was signing on homeless at the Elephant and Castle. The hospital was a street dream away now. He was waking up from a nightmare, in a doorway. The people and traffic in the nightmare seemed so real but before he had time to think the nightmare became a memory and he was awake in a reality that was another nightmare anyway. Once he had thought the street meant tramps, ex-service men selling matches from improvised cardboard trays, who he assumed replenished their stock by pocketing left boxes of matches from the pubs, bars and cafes they visited. Customers could see the old match seller and deliberately leave their matches on the table when they left, girlfriends would test their boyfriends for meanness by saying leave the matches for that man he is a match seller. If the fellow left the box it might indicate generosity, if he merely snapped don’t believe in charity, otherwise. And meths drinkers. Ever tried meths an alcoholic once asked me . You can just about stomach it if you’re desperate. Its better 
than boot polish , These characters on the street had been replaced by beer drinkers junkies and dog and blanket men who were into both and sold the Big Issue. That’s progress for you. Away with the doss-houses and spikes and  Victorian Psychiatric hospitals and on with the homeless hostels and new psychiatric units and care in the community hostels. Leave the hostels buy a dog and sit crosslegged by a cap or hat and hope that passers-by feel sorry for the dog. Superboy and Krypto flying towards
the infinite void, on the nod no less under the influence of anything they can lay their hands on thats right the dog as well unless you can save them by putting a few coins in the hat. A pair of beer drinkers were reading a shared newspaper . They were sitting by a wall near Waterloo station . Dont tell me any different I saw them there yesterday. Inebriation is accepted now almost a credential good enough to put on your CV. 'I see you've been very honest about your problem with substance abuse, I respect that honesty. and added to the fact that you've been clean for over five years, I don't see why, subject to a blood and urine test of course, we can't offer you the post. I only wish more people were as honest as you'.                                 'Thank you for giving me a chance, I won’t let you down'. 
He started from this daydream and its remoteness from the truth made him sadder. As he tried to stand he felt aware of being dirty from the street and started to recall a memory from years ago but before allowing the memory to be recalled into coherence he started to wonder just how much he could hold in his memory without it bursting and flooding his mind and if that happened would he be stuck like that inane from a mind flooded with all sorts of randomly recalled memories occupying his consciousness unbidden and having thought that forgot what he was remembering anyway . It would be odd and difficult to live with no memory at all, someone probably does. Locked away in some ghastly home for the mentally ill, down some remote corridor in Epsom, or kept as a curiosity in a special hospital like Carstairs or Rampton. Or on a life support system in a side room in an underfunded general hospital.'Hanging on ' while family and doctors squabble about withholding treatment and quality of life, glazed eyes incapable of closing themselves send a picture back to a 
brain capable of only the very minimum qualification for recognition.
                 He sat down and momentarily lost consciousness but no dreams no hallucination just a 
black void and a sickly feeling of having momentarily died and then returned to life a feeling he'd experienced a lot recently. Heartbeat and erratic breathing on the street he was wishing that he had not washed down so many valium with the beer last night. Never be able to give up and he started to cry as he awoke from the brief shutdown.                  Nowhere to go, no money I bet, he checked his pockets and thanked god for the ten pound note that had escaped the memory of his buzz-hungry mind last night.                It happens sometimes and it appears like providence. So intoxicated was he last night that he thought he must have spent all his money in his desire for sleep he had ate into his valium convinced that he was broke. The fact was that last night he had reached the point that he didn't care whether he woke up or not. Somehow he had overlooked a pocket or perhaps he had put the money aside and then forgot he had done so. In any case he had been convinced he had spent out but now he found he dId not so life picked up he dreaded to think what would have happened had he not saved the tenner.
                      He remembered some of thr previous night though, and winced at the memory of buying a couple of fellows a can of beer each .This meant he would have to be prepared for the possibility of having 'friends' today. Who knows what confidences he had shared in a moment of compassion for the human race and who knows how accurate the memories of his confidantes were. No doubt if he sees them he would be met with the false smile that accompanies the hope of a second dose of generosity.
                      He hastily put the note back in his pocket treating it as a windfall. He would divide it up
into the days before his next payday.
                       He would buy food and coffee and live off that valium until his payday it would last him until he collected his benefit in three days’ time. Why if he had a little more luck or did not mind going without food for a day he could even buy some beer to wash down the valium . More of a buzz.

He had a can of beer in his hand and it looked as though it was not the first of the day. He was wearing a green jacket a sort of anorak.His hair hadnt been combed for a while and he was unsteady on his feet,and he looked like the world was rushing by him, he had been sleeping in doorways. One of his pockets was half folded inside out and poking out of another pocket was the neck of a model violin, the sort that the music shops in the Charing Cross Road sell as souvenirs. These models cost about a fiver and his was working its way out of his pocket which was turning itself inside out in league with the other pocket which was half inside out already ,the way clothes appear to behave to the drunk is as if they have a life of their own that they are somehow bewitched or cursed to misbehave and self destruct. The way pockets pass money from pocket to pocket and then to the ground or the hands of passers by who are all theives anyway when a fellow has had a drink or two is appalling and it does not matter either if the drink is taken for medicinal or respectable purposes . Add drugs to the situation and anyone could believe magicians and conjurors were at work when it comes to remembering which item is in which pocket.                           The violin was in any case working its way to the ground and perhaps breakage and tears or staunch not-tears it doesnt matter I'm a big boy now it was only the symbol of a new life without alcohol and an instrument relearnt not the actual thing but a tear of demoralization just the same might run down his cheek washing its lonely path through the street dirt on his face or, the model violin might make it to the bedside cabinet in a hostel for the homeless where hopefully it would be beneath the contempt of the thieves which includes everyone right as you wouldn’t get much for that violin on his locker would yo, no it would mark his territory as a possession I don’t spend all my money on drink it may have been given by a passer-by out of pity or ignorance I own a possession one day I may own more I may even one day have a place of my own to keep them in a life of my own here.
‘let’s have a look at that what did you waste your money on that’ for or even an insincere ‘that’s nice that’ as a prelude to a touch having asserted that the fellow is not your usual dosser that he has a possession and having complemented him on the ownership of such a possession and made the fellow feel superior and if not actually more wealthy than the other dossers potentially more wealthy it would surely be no trouble to lend the price of a can of strong lager. 
                                                    No-one will ever know where the model violin came from anyway in a world where no-one believes anyone else in any case 'I was given it ' 'Oh yeah?' or more likely later
 ' I  let him think I believed him and borrowed a quid he won’t see that again thinks too much of himself that ---- I'll show him I'll blank him come pay day the ----. Of course it's a different story when the beer’s worn off and slept off 'Here's that quid I owe you 'and a few days later the same routine with the inquiring after the model violin and I know how this is going to end but he's such a good bloke your'e a good bloke you are alright just a quid mind and so on the quid exchanged back and forth so often and with conversation thrown in that the quid itself starts to wonder who it's real owner is but not the dossers they know. 
                                                       No-one gives a fuck about the model violin after a while he even tries to give it away and when he cant sleep he stares at it wondering if it could hypnotise him to sleep which it cant and as he imagines and plans and thinks about a single persons flat and a job and the impossibility of it all and what someone somewhere who had it worse than him once did and feeling lonely went to sleep scared that he might not wake up and rich people......
                                                        Last thing he saw was that violin he was staring at it before he went to sleep then the other fellow hit him over the head and the next thing there was blood everywhere killed him with one blow never even woke up . Way to go . Way for you to go if you want he was only a lad its a ------ tragedy but he doesnt mean it its just a good bloke act to borrow a quid the owner of the model violin wakes up and the following day 'I had a terrible dream lastnight some ---- done me in and all youse lot could do is use it to borrow beer money'' hows that ''well pretending to sympathise for one thing ''we woould never do that it was a nightmare you had thats all and now that Ive reassured you could you lend me a quid?'. ' Yes I was in the dosshouse for a while and you wouldnt like it there I can tell you all that borrowing'. 
                                                     'Theres a lot of that here theres terrible cigarette croungers here  you'll soon get to know them they never pay you back '. 'Well at least its only cigarettes its not beer'                                                       ' That's true it's not so bad here perhaps after all ' 
                                                        And then not wanting to be seen as soft and as a reward for the reassurance the new fellow on the admission ward seemed to need 'You wouldn't happen to have a couple of cigarettes to spare I'm getting some later' 'Sure take three' so pleased to make a friend  as he takes his model violin out of his battered suitcase and puts it on the locker by his bed ' No-one will steal that he thinks to himself'.