Pound Notes and Cockspurs

The following day Lela grabbed her portmanteau, the one she carried with her when she ran away, and slamming shut the door left her flat. The man in the hat grabbed his favorite hat, the one he wore on rainy days and the day after Ships Day, and bolted for the street. The shamble leg man kipped a shilling and headed north for Mudstone on Kent, a cockspurs of pound notes jingling in his greatcoat pocket. The alms man folded his cardboard and hightailed it for Eccles Street, where he heard a doter sold Cheddar Mwyn Coch Cymreig by the wedge. The harridan wrapped her neck in a muffler, a gift from her sister, and beat it for Vilnius Vilniaus Apskritis, not quite sure where she was going and why. Her sister sold her last Pop-siècle placemat to a fat man with a pigsty eye and beat a path to Manerbio Italy, a place she’d always wanted to visit but hadn’t the wherewithal or time to do so. The legless man punted his pushcart praying he’d make it to the sea before the ship left for Rome without him. The next day the sky fell, a parade of lost dogs kipping the shilling northward quick.

‘…that’ll be the day…’ said the shamble leg. ‘…and what day is that…?’ asked the alms man. ‘…the day they stop calling yesterday the day before today…’ replied the shamble leg man, knees knocking one into the other. ‘…oh, I see…’ said the alms man, the tiptop of his head bristling with new hair. ‘…them bastards couldn’t tell a month from a year…’. ‘…or a day from a week…’ added the alms man. ‘…sissy cod bastards…!’ hissed the shamble leg man, the back of his hands downy with sweat. ‘…the lot of ‘em…’ prated the alms man, the sky turning cartwheels above his head. ‘…that’ll be the day, sure as I’m sitting here…’. ‘…the day for certain, no doubt about it…’ said the alms man, the sky turning this way and that, the shamble leg man sniffing the tips of his smoking fingers.