They were listening.

That's what my mother always told me when I enquired about the two men sitting on the bench in the park.

Every Tuesday we would find them there, sitting as still as statues, seemingly staring straight ahead. My mother told me that they were blind and that that was why they never seemed to be looking at anything in particular.

She said that they listened so much because they couldn't see; that they took in double as much information through their ears. They were drinking in the sounds of children playing and dogs barking and couples walking and buskers singing and families picnicking.

I liked watching them listening and wondering what they could hear. I wondering if they could hear me looking at them and if their hands touching was another gentle sound.