It's half past bollocks on the millionth of January and all the headlines end with question marks. Hunger's turned up unexpectedly. It's odd how they put the food court next to the seafood hall. When you open your mouth for the pizza or the pad thai the fish wriggle off their stalls and float up your face-holes, shaking ice-flakes to the floor. A hundred tiny puddles and not one yellow cone. Outside it's brighter and people walk past by themselves. A man is bothering a bus stop. The stop has people in it and the man is on a two-step ladder and is making loud Jesus-based noise with his mouth. Someone walking past points at the ladder and goes hey is that a stairway to heaven? The bus stop chuckles and a thigh is slapped.
A white van approaches. Black string is trailing from its back doors and at the end of it is a black glove. It's waving at the sky and tickling the trees and removing hats. The man has his back to it. When it passes him, the glove grabs his neck, drags him off his ladder and forty feet to the corner before it lets him go.
