An über-short piece written on the bus:
There’s an old homeless man at the bus stop. Stinking of tobacco, stale urine and alcohol, he cheerily brandishes a surprisingly clean looking harmonica and hurls ‘good humored’ insults in a near unintelligible Glaswegian accent at those who pass by. He laughs when they reel back inevitably from the smell.
Not everyone passes by. A couple of hipsters, waiting at the stop, sit either side of the tramp offering fresh tobacco and ironic laughter; their brightly artificial purples and yellows clashing with his fully olive green ensemble.
Unlike the old man, who doesn’t seem to care who listens to him, the hipsters are clearly desperate for the attention of the world around them. They smell almost as repugnant as he does, but theirs is a far more manufactured stench, a rancid mix of too much cheap deodorant and cheaper taste. Their over-loud laughter acting as a staccato conversation between them:
“What a humorous situation we are having!”
“Indeed! What a jolly jape! I bet all these squares wish they were as fun as we!”
The old man soon tires of his empty companions and stumbles away on unsteady legs. These are not the two he was sent to meet. He was temporarily confused by their bright costume and inhuman scent but they are not who he is waiting for.
The message came through early this morning, a little garbled but that was always the way with messages from home. And it had been such a long time since he had heard from command. What he was able to gather from the message was quite clear: the ambassadors are coming.
