Sighting

On my way to town for lunch, I was about to ring the precious steel bell mounted on my handbars for two men of middle age on the sidewalk I'd considered cruising down when their blue-grey robes tied at the side caught my attention. Surely it is not good karma to run over or compete for ground with holy men.

One wore a large Chinese fisherman-like hat and the other did not. His bald head and right leg stuck outwards from the loosely garbed body that was bent in close inspection of a heap of metal at the foot of a large bush. He gestured to the other one, whose hat shaded his face as he, too, inclined his bulk toward the find: a ruin of a bicycle whose front tire had been taken and whose frame was now ditched into the ground like a two-dimensional rickshaw with no puller. By the dullish appearance of the tubing, it appears to have lain there for some time, still chained fast to the bus stop sign. I sped past this vignette, having decided to use the macadam rather than halt the intrigued exchange between the men.

I wondered if they were the first to have wondered at the not uncommon sight in a long time. There is much waste, isn't there, that goes on? En route to picking up my bicycle this morning, I spotted a pair of strange-looking underwear on the ground: a black triangle trimmed with flourescent flourets. It made me think a little of my poor little lost sock.