Trafalgar Square

“But Miss, squares are boring!”

I am fourteen and in a maths lesson, nodding in agreement at the square related insult.

Why be a rigid, painfully equal square when you could be a smooth, hazard free circle after all?

I’d say that to the class but then I’d be saying shapes have feelings and that might not go down too well…

Fast forward to now and I am twenty, supposedly more mature with a greater intellectual capacity,

And as I stand in this particular square, I can’t help but wonder if a more square shaped world would be a better world – a more equal world,

Where all sides are the same and there’s four points rather than two poles which means there’s more to go round and

As I stand in this square and think about this, I realise that square worlds aren't really an issue for an idle Friday and so I turn my attention to other things.

There’s a calm covered blanket which drapes itself over this square,

Shielding it from the hustle and bustle of the traffic around it.

This square has its own solar system,

With itself at the centre, and bus and taxi shaped planets in noisy orbit all around it,

Yet even in the midst of such chaos, this square finds solace.

This square is no sun of ours.

That sun burns angrily even though it’s centre of attention,

But this square sits quietly as people place their faith which means something in tiny coppers which mean nothing and hurl them into the fountains, drowning wishes they’d rather surface than sink to the ocean floor.

If this square had a voice then I’d like to think it would say to never judge a square by its cover

Because it’s what goes on inside the square that counts.

And as I stand on this idle Friday and observe this interior it hits me that this is a square that’s as unequal and unpredictable as the world around it,

Where as one person smiles for a photo another sighs because they've just missed the last train home,

Where one person throws their rubbish on the ground for the man who gets paid to put it in the same bin he chased a pigeon away from only a couple of minutes ago.

It’s these instances that make this square more interesting than any circle,

And it’s these moments that turn this square into a little child trying to get the attention of its father who’s high up on that column looking elsewhere.

And it’s all of this which means that whenever someone says squares are boring,

I tell them to reconsider.

Jack Whitbread