One Mod Nod

Many passed, a few tossed dull coins into his hat, as he stood in the town square in his sharp suit, his head bobbing up and down.

 

"What's going on?" said the lady with the large lobes.

 

"Dunno," said the tiny teenager, "but he's been doing it for hours."

 

The mod nodded.

 

Pigeons pooed.

 

A toddler stared the way toddlers do.

 

"Come away, Niall!" said the toddler's mum, but the toddler stared for four seconds more, before the ice cream fell and the screams commenced.

 

When the memory of the tantrum had faded and the pigeons had departed, the oscillation of the head of the sharp-suited man continued through the dusk, the dreams and the dawn.

 

Nobody understood but the sharp-suited man, but the sharp-suited man did not speak (though a vagrant of the night, of naval extraction, entertained a theory of Morse Code).

 

A frown. A photo. A Facebook status.

 

A policeman paused, considered and walked on.

 

Then as the silence withdrew and the drone of existence rose to a cacophony of indifference, an arrow of sound pierced his perception like a... you know... really sharp thing... going through something... soft... or something...

 

"DAN!" began the spousal beration of the sharp-suited man. "YOU'RE NOT A BLOODY ARTIST, SO STOP STANDING THERE LIKE A TIT AND GET YOUR ARSE BACK HOME!"

 

Dan the ex-mod stopped standing there like a tit and got his arse back home.