For the past year or so I've noticed him. I'm not sure how i knew he was a "he", intuition of some sort as until this morning i had never seen the invisible inscriber. He writes on stone walls and pavements in chalk and on painted or tiled walls in a black or blue marker pen. Sometimes he uses colours if he illustrates his prose, but mainly its just writing. There is a subway close to my house which i walk through often and there particularly his pen flowed like it was possessed....literally. Most of what he writes has a heavy religious lean and I've seen his characteristic style of writing on the streets all over town but mainly in the subways. I conjure up images of what he may look like in my mind and the situations under which he may be writing as the text just goes on and on and on, sometimes I stand reading his words for 10 or 20 mins at a time. I always thought he choose subways because they were sheltered and some of what he writes and draws must take a long time so he could need protection from the elements. Ive also wondered why in all this time and my heavy footfall around town I've not seen him yet....perhaps he has to write under the cover of darkness in case he gets seen. Some of what he writes could be controversial although its harmless, thought provoking and extremely interesting stuff. Yet because I had him pegged as a shadow, shrouded in mystery and religious misunderstandings I have become as equally in awe of him as intimidated at the prospect of crossing his path. Alas, I am only human and my curiosity took a knock when the council started to block paint in an industrial grey colour over such profundities as "I learn best when there is pain within the teaching" Luckily for us all the inscriber was not defeated and came back to re write over the communist bland-over job. Weeks passed and he was building up his messages to us, in fact this time as the background was grey and uniform it lent it self even better to his illustrations and he started using more colour and pictures. The council had seen enough free spirit, and in a final act of totalitarian bigotry repainted over his work in an indigo colour and got some "artists" to graffiti the whole subway in a deep indigo and fuscia. The inscriber cannot use his pens to write over the walls now, they are too dark in colour, plus knowing him as i do (?!) he wouldn't write on art. And although I am a fan of GOOD graffiti, this most definitely is not, and so rubbing salt in the wound. So there it stands daily for me at least a reminder of the society we pay to be part of in more ways than just financially.
Today I cycled under the rail tracks as a deviation from a cycle route I usually take...and there he was crouching on the ground in broad daylight dressed in dirty ripped clothing with a huge block of chalk in his hand writing on the ground in his familiar neat scribe. He is African although I couldn't place his accent when he spoke, I asked him if he was the guy who wrote in "my" subway....he seemed a little unsure, although I knew there could only be one and that he was probably thinking "who is this nut- nut?". He went on to tell me it didn't matter that they had painted over it, as long as it had been there for at least 24hrs then someone would have seen it and although "they can delete it from the walls they cannot delete it from your mind" He thanked me for reading it, I thanked him for writing it, and we moved forward in time....
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