2330 hours. Riding the pushbike home from the hospital for sick children on a Sunday night, racing dreamy trams through the Central Business District, through the drowsing city as it winds itself down from weekend revels. The streets drain visitors to their dormitory suburbs; those on foot, inner city dwellers, are mostly students, mostly Asian.

The bike affords a view at street level. On every city block there is one figure seen seated on the footpath, male, his back supported by a shopfront, before him a placard, his testament of poverty, of need. Before him an upturned cap solicits alms. Peering from the bike across the emptying asphalt, between unclad legs, I see the bearded face of the seated man, mute, impassive, staying put.

The unclad legs are of groups of Asian girls who wear spring frocks shorter than the precipice high heels dictated by fashion. The legs pass; the beard, the placard, the face remain. No alms fall into the money hat.

On the next block the same slow tableau.

Red lights arrest me at the third block. I can hear the girls’ soft laughter as they pass. The face of this man is not seen: his head slumped, he sleeps, sleeps on the cooling street, sleeps before the hat. No-one comes near.

The green light releases me from indecision. Riding now, racing trams once more, leaving behind me undischarged my impulse of munificence, I ride hard, ride towards my home where warmth, a shower await, where I have a wardrobe full of shoes. Those high heeled extravagances speak to my own blessed feet as they depress the pedals. How many are your shoes? I count them as I ride.

I count ten pairs of shoes in my warm home. I have only two feet. Ten pairs plus all the running shoes, those retired from marathons but still serviceable, and the new pair in lapis blue waiting for a runner whose running days are done.

Twenty eight shoes for my two feet.

We are two bearded men who write our testaments, two of us tired from fetching our daily bread. I ride to my home. Mon frere, mon semblable, sleeps already, on the street.

Beyond these city blocks lie the docks and the silent cold sea. Across the cold waters, homeless, locked from sight, from our hearing, locked away in distant islands of poverty are the thousands who will never, ever – on a government’s solemn vow – come into our comfortable home.