Kissing Charles Aznavour

The woman is kissing Charles Aznavour on the wrong street in Dublin. She is much younger than he and he seems to be accepting her admiration with benign patience.

It is early morning and I wait politely for her to conclude.

She has asked me for directions to a conference venue.

She and a male companion, not Chuck the singer, are on a street parallel to where they should be and have declared themselves to be lost, to me.

I know where they should be and begin to say so when passion overtakes the woman who takes leave of Monsieur Aznavour now that I have become her guide.

The third person in the relationship tells me they are enroute to a very important conference where a great many important people will gather to hear more important people speak to them about a matter of great importance.

I lose interest when he tells me his own area of interest is in the nuclear field. He waits for a suitably admiring reaction from me; but I am heading home from a session with a physiotherapist for a damaged small finger on my left hand.

My finger hurts from a leap from a high wall and the consequent treatment and I could care less about nuclear.

To no response, I tell him the 18th century building we are standing beside was once a city hospital. I tell him where he is going, The Royal Hospital at Kilmainham, is modelled after Les Invalides in Paris, to no response.

By now, Charles is peeling the woman away from his presence.

She smiles shyly at me as if I am party to a great secret; but I now see it is not Charles Aznavour at all, but someone else.

I don't know who he is and wonder if he is French at all, or, just someone she mistook for another.

 I wonder who she thinks I am, as I take leave of them to catch my bus home. 

Nuclear.

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