The Clochard's Wake

The clochard shook violently and stood up, wrangling free of the man in the hat and the alms man and the legless man who had him pinned to the asphalt with they’re knees and elbows. ‘He’s a fucking wake’ whispered the legless man. ‘Wake means dead’ said the man in the hat, ‘and he’s definitely not dead’. ‘Dead wake dead’ said the alms man, ‘surely not dead a wake, maybe fucking a wake, maybe he’s that, a wake fucker’. The legless man knocked the alms man’s cap from his pocket, a capful of coppers and face-coins toppling to the ground. ‘Wake that, you braggart’. The alms man made a fork of his fingers and jabbed at the legless man’s eyes, cap scuffling beneath his feet. ‘Fuck off and away!’ he hollered, ‘is you doffed?’ ‘One doffs one’s cap, not one’s…’For the love of fuck, away with you both’ yammered the alms man, ‘the man is surely dead’. ‘Dead as a dormouse’ said the legless man, ‘deader than a wakeful wake dead’. ‘Stop it, the two of you, before I slap you down to size, which from the size of it would be a short slap’ said the man in the hat, his hat tucked under his arm for safekeeping. The clochard slowly raised himself upright, knees knocking like saw-blocks, and hobbled away, mumbling to himself ‘ is a strange world this world, such nonsense and blather’.