Hugging strangers

This evening I walked along the coast, long after the sun had died. I came across four friends who asked me if I was German. One of them had a guitar. I said I wasn’t German, but had spent some time there. I asked the guy with the guitar to play for me. He wanted to sing John Legend’s ‘Ordinary People’ but didn’t want to sing it to me. “Not the kind of song to sing to a guy.”

I asked him to sing it to the woman who was with him instead. He did; the whole song. She sang some parts, and so did the other guy who was with them. I just stood there and listened to them all. It was the best few minutes of my day. When the singer/guitarist finished I clapped, shook his hand, and hugged him. The three of them said they’d see me in Germany and walked off. I kept walking in the opposite direction, feeling better about people. Further down the coastal path someone had sprayed a red heart on the wall.