It was raining. I was somewhere in the West End, my movie was about to start, and I was lost. Standing outside of a parking garage, fighting with the magazine that held the address to the movie theater I was looking for and the pages of my map that kept turning over as soon as the wind hit them, I was getting wet. Really wet. It got worse every minute. I was running out of time. I desperately watched the papery mess in my hand when suddenly I heard a voice coming out of the dark entrance of the garage: “What are you looking for?”

I turned around to see a homeless man sitting there. He had covered a small piece of concrete with newspapers on which he sat and stared. At me, at the rain, at my magazine that began to sag under the weight of the water pouring down on it.
“Leicester Place”, I said a little unwillingly but already waiting for his response.
“You need to go back to where you came from. Wrong direction. Look out for a street to your right.”

He spoke in a low voice already and it nearly died away completely the longer he talked. In the end it was merely a whisper. I looked at my map and realized in a second that he was right. I took out my wallet and fumbled for some coins to thank him but he had already turned away from me, muttering to himself: “See, I can be useful.”

I was about to say “I never doubted that” but I knew it wasn’t the truth.