Nameless people

Passing by the park, I heard him call his second dog twice, but she didn’t hear, so I told him it’s probably the wind – down the hill, where the dog was sniffing the grass, you can’t hear much. He smiled, thanked and asked if I was Dutch (‘cause, apparently, I sound Dutch, especially to older, British natives: he wasn’t the first one to assume so). He praised my language skills and complained about his inexistent ones: he was so unlike his wife, who speaks excellent French. The way he talked about their trip to Paris was telling me more than he would probably be comfortable sharing with a complete stranger. The spark in his eye, the pride in his voice, the smile that spread all over his face – they, French people, they took her for a native and only he, always so terrible with languages, gave her away with his thick, British accent! When I left him and his two golden dogs behind on the dump grass under the slowly darkening skies, I thought I want to grow old just like him. I want to be that content about going out with my dogs and chatting about my partner to pleasantly looking passers-by. I want my eyes to spark so bright and my voice to be so calm. So unlike it is now.