‘Have you sold the cheomsang?’ I asked the same woman I
addressed last week.
‘Don’t know,’ she replied (she never does.) ‘I’ve been away
for a few days. I expect somebody bought it for a fancy dress party.’
Fancy dress? The cheomsang? Oh dear, oh dear.
* * *
I went to the Market Place and sat on a bench in the
sunshine. I swear a man came to the adjacent seat, chained a bike to it, and
then walked away. About ten minutes later, a different man came along and
started unchaining the bike. I eyed him suspiciously, and then got up and
asked:
‘Excuse me, is that your bike?’
‘Yes,’ said the man a little sheepishly.
‘But somebody else just left it here.’
‘No they didn’t, it’s been here for ages.’
Well, what do you do? I’m pretty hopeless at most things,
but one thing I make a reasonable stab at is assessing human nature. Everything
about this chap – from his body language to his eyes to his tone of voice to
his funny hat – said ‘I’m an ordinary honest Joe, not a stealer of bikes.’ So I
had to admit my error and apologise. That was embarrassing.
* * *
There were a couple of council workmen painting lines on a resurfaced
road that appeared to be one process short of finished. I decided that either
the council is planning to leave it in that gravelly state, or somebody issued
the second piece of paper first. It happens. If the latter is indeed the case,
the workmen will have to come back and paint the lines again, won’t they? I
suppose I should have asked ‘Excuse me, should you really be painting lines on
this gravelly surface?’ but I couldn’t be bothered.
* * *
And finally, there was a man sitting on a bench outside the
supermarket, eating a portion of chips from a polystyrene tray (the material
from which the tray was made is irrelevant, of course, but I occasionally
succumb to writing decompressed narratives for want of heavy relief.) Every so
often, in between chews, he would address the apparently empty space in front
of him very earnestly and with a somewhat didactic manner. The set of his eyes
suggested that whatever he was talking to was about three feet tall. I did
wonder…
The End.
There’s rarely a dull moment in Ashbourne, you know. Well
actually, 99% of the moments are terminally dull, but I distrust numbers.
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