These were:
Three teenagers outside my shop on kick scooters, one wobbling, the others adroit, all watching the ground carefully and weaving in and out of passers-by, graceful in winter.
Two people pass, loud, as people usually are in the mornings. There was a flash of checked shirts and jeans, a tap on the edge of the door, that’s all. But their voices, loud, loud, floated back, hanging in the doorway:
‘I saw a wagon type one the other day.’
‘Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah…’
‘It’s really good shit.’
‘Yeah, yeah, yeah.’
Lena visits wearing gardening gloves. Safe.
Terry, in a sapphire blue beanie, reads out loud to me from a little joke book he has just bought. He reads about twenty jokes to me, and says, ‘This is great, it’s just the one – thank you so much. Gunna give these to my grandkids.’
His face is a lit lamp.
Illustration by Jean Jacques Sempe
I hadn’t heard of anyone in gardening gloves yet! That’s…pretty brilliant actually.
Joke books are the best; I still have one of Irish jokes somewhere…
Have a lovely day 😉
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Thank you 🙂
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Love this!
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Thank you, and for reading.
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AMAZING WORK
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Thank you, Nancy 🙂
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