A Mighty Fortress Is Our God

Bloomberg walked the distance of two miles from his hotel to the restaurant, and he was grateful for the fact that it was not raining outside. It wasn’t even doing that thing with the weather where it was nasty and misty and slightly sprinkling, where you felt as if you were a vegetable housed in the produce rack and receiving daily sustenance. It wasn’t doing anything like that today, and for the somewhat clear skies, he was grateful.

He was wearing a thick, blue trenchcoat and alligator boots, and he was whistling a tune that had been stuck in his head for the last four days. The tune was “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God”. And the real kicker was that he hadn’t even picked it up from church. He hadn’t been to a church, any kind of church, for who knows how long. Interestingly enough, he had caught the tune from a small boy, kicking a soccer ball up and down. A small boy positioned outside of a doorstep in a nearby city.

A Mighty Fortress Is our God”. That’s the song he was singing. Not whistling – singing. So strange to witness the absurdity of the overall scene. It would’ve made sense if he was singing something like “Take Me Out To The Ball Game” or “How Much Is That Doggie In The Window”. Not a goddamn hymn.

And so he whistled to himself on the two mile walk from the hotel to the restaurant, thinking of the isolation and the churlishness of the boy in the nearby city. That was the other thing he would’ve assumed – that an adolescent boy with some free time and a soccer ball would’ve been in a somewhat happy mood. But no, he seemed to be outside because he was forced to be outside, and he seemed to be playing with a soccer ball because there was nothing better to do with his time. He seemed to be singing the hymn either as a form of penitence, or a plea to God to rescue him from whatever discouraging circumstances he found himself in.

Bloomberg was people- watching the entire walk to the restaurant. And he continued to people-watch after he sat down at a table outside and was given a menu. He found that he felt less and less insecure of being observed and potentially judged by spectators and more and more confident of blatantly observing others the longer his trip progressed.

He’d seen all sorts of people – every type of imaginable person that would be drawn to a cultured and metropolitan European city. But out of everyone, he saw no one that resembled the slightly cheerless boy, the boy with a soccer ball singing the hymn at full volume.

He ate his steak bite by bite, he ate his garlic mashed potatoes and peas spoonful by spoonful. He ate his buttered bread, bite by bite. He drank his glass of half full wine, sip by everlasting sip. And he continued to people-watch. And he paid the bill and left and whistled the hymn “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God” all the way back to the hotel.

Why was the boy so cheerless? Would he remain that way forever, or would he smile again? These were questions that plagued Bloomberg’s mind as he sought in vain to fall asleep at the end of a long day of travel.