Frangible Things and Not

A man with a peg-leg tippled across the sideways, the tails of his greatcoat flapping floppily. He faced the facing face to face, the facing crumbling round the edges. His peg-leg wobbled, the yolk woven into the inseam of his trouser leg. Willowing and wallowing for dear life, he stopped to smell a rose flourishing in the flowerbed beside the Waymart proper. Facing the rose he bent to re-buckle his shoe, the heel on the left shoe, the shoe he bent to tie, twice as high as the right shoe, the one already buckled and fixed. As the right shoe need not be attended to he paid attention to the left shoe, the shoe with the twice-as-high-heel, refastening the buckle with the cobs of his fingertips. His peg-leg poked into the brad of his ankle, causing him considerable pain and discommode. He knew next to nil about the legless man, whom he called an eggless man rather than a man without legs. The shamble leg man he knew fleetingly, having once seen him from a distance distantly. ‘Today I will buy some eggs’ he mumbled to himself, ‘a basketful of fresh white eggs’.

The man in the hat sat at ease and little comfort on a bench in the park with no trees across form the Waymart, his Burgher’s hat placed neatly on his lap. He watched with rapt attention the peg-leg man wobble and buckle, his left shoe striking the pavement like a spent match, a flurry of sparks and hi-tails cobbling the blacktop sideways. ‘That man needs some eggs’ he whispered to himself, ‘some fresh white eggs’. A tabby cat the size of a dog darted in and out of traffic, its tail twirling like a baton, eyes two black furies. The man with the peg-leg swiped at the cat with the heel of his right shoe, his left shoe trailing behind him like a second thought. The man in the hat doffed his cap and went about his business, his thoughts on eggs and white sales and frangible things and not.