Sorrow Corner 

Naeem Murr 

Most tourists mistake us for Speakers’ Corner, those blowhards at the other end of Hyde Park. No one here speaks. Wearable sandwich boards are not light, and mine are among the biggest, reflecting the extent and complexity of my sorrow—a new version fresh off the presses today. I’ve used both sides. I’ve also printed a mini pamphlet of supplemental materials, though I’ve been warned by the regulars here that people won’t read more than a page nowadays. They want something simple, impactful, with images. And it’s true enough that no one bothers to read old Josiah, who’s scrawled his sorrows all over his near naked body in tiny, spidery biro with parenthetical emendations, underlining, and (literal) footnotes. But Yasmin isn’t exactly beating them back with a stick either, and all she has is a numbered list on a piece of 18 × 24 drawing paper. She gives anyone who reads her list a flax muffin, chokingly dry, and the coffee to wash it down is only provided once they’ve completed a multiple choice on her sorrows with no less than seven of the ten questions right.