Reef-knots and Arithmatic

What exactly mouton-bird was, was a mystery to the shamble leg man, Sanskrit or Esperanto, or some Incan dialect he couldn’t be bothered trying to make sense of it, and even of he did, wouldn’t pay it much bother anyhow. He heard a trumpeting that seem to come out of nowhere, like a child being scolded or a cat being swung overhead. He stopped to think, to amuse himself with the very thought that he could think, and readjusting the inseam on his trouser leg jumped to one side like a house on fire. A steaming bowl of Quaker’s Oats with creamery milk and brown sugar and those ribbon-cut flaps of toast his grandmamma fingered into the porridge with the held end of the spoon. Everything tasted better once his grandmamma had touched it, whatever she put in a bowl or cut into ribbon-ends, it always had a sweetness and treacle taste to it. Life is simple like that sometimes, simpler than arithmatic or tying a reef-knot for the second time.