Peak Times

In the pond in the park the fountain stopped. Swans slid across to investigate. A van crawled towards the pond's edge and stopped next to the fisherman. Three men in overalls all different shades of orange exited the van and unloaded a cement mixer, a spade, a pneumatic scoop and four yellow plastic sections of fence. While one of them plugged the cement mixer in at the cafe and mixed the cement the other two fenced off a small area at the edge of the pond and attacked the pavement with the pneumatic scoop. Dust settled on ice creams. Dogs conferenced. Picnics succeeded. The scooping men returned the scoop to the van and took out a tarpaulin-covered box attached to a black pole. They carried it to the fenced off area and set the pole in the ground with the box on top. The scoopers held it upright while the cement man cemented the base. When this was done he used his spade to flick the rubble from the hole into the pond. All three stood and inspected the box on the pole, looked at each other, and removed the tarpaulin. Children screamed. The box had a coin slot at the top, a note slit in the middle, and a change tray at the bottom. They loaded the fence and the scoop and the mixer and the spade and themselves into the van and drove away slowly with the hazard lights blinking. A woman in a Nirvana t-shirt approached the box and put 50p in the slot. The fountain came back on.

All We Had Was Like Two Pot Noodles

Out the other window, looking to the left, there's the car park of a funeral shop, where sometimes white vans squeak in at night to disgorge unoccupied coffins wrapped in clear plastic and parcel tape. The two men moving them from the van into the shop never seem to get the balance right. It's always a struggle. The wind doesn't help. Neither do I. It's none of my business, but I've thought about wailing some helpful hints at them, such as slow down, it's only a box, I used to drive a van full of items myself you know, and there's a scar on my arm from where I didn't slow down once, while taking the items from one place to another, I was hungry, it's best to pick the items up when at least one of you has exited the van, rather than both of you stumbling out at either end of the item, looking like some kind of unlicensed gothic wrestling fiasco. But the coffins go in and the van goes away, and there's never really an incident that requires my input.

A Selection of Varieties

I opened the train door window and stuck my head out and got a big schnozzful of evening. When I pulled my head in to avoid having it thunked senseless by an approaching pole, I looked behind and saw a man hanging out the next window, doing the same thing, grinning, not intending to be inconvenienced by a mere lethal hazard.

Overheard in the shirt shop: It would irritate my neck. I can't be expected to go about with an irritated neck all day, just because of rules.

In Cambridge they apparently let the cows frolic and feed on the city centre grass, once in a while, or regularly, but maybe not every day. Which explains the wafts of dung, and the trampled rats, and the hoofprints on the cars.

Yeah Not Bad Mate

The toothy young barber did not want to stop. I'll go at your eyebrows, he said, no thanks they're not really something I get involved with ever but now you've highlighted their lack of splendour maybe I'll give them a once-over in the bathroom mirror although if you start on that path where will it end, in fact just get the machete out and I'll swap heads with somebody I can stand to look at, and that's not anyone in this room right now, so you're going to have to take to the streets, I said. And he for some reason took this as consent, and slapped a comb against the left eyebrow and made some sweeping stabs with the electric thing, then removed the electric thing and the comb and held them in perfectly still hands while he tilted his head as if to invite me to stop him, giving me the opportunity to say yeah don't bother with the other one I prefer a fucking mismatch above all things, which I didn't, so he went at the right one, then threw his tools down on the counter and with his back to me dipped a fist-sized black brush in white powder, turned, breathed in, and Zorroed me about the face with it. I can only assume it was essential to my recovery.

Your Massive Horrible Face

I've got to have a word with you about...you know. It's bothering the community. I bet you didn't know there was a community. There wasn't, before you arrived. Then: my god. They saw me with you a few times and one night demanded answers. Why does it drip? Why does it swivel and hiss? Who is responsible? They were all worked up and talked very quickly. I said I know who it belongs to, but I don't know who controls it. Maybe nobody. Mirrors and windows only reflect about half of it, so how is he supposed to know of the revulsion? And he doesn't have a radio, so he won't've heard the songs.