Monday, January 14, 2008

Passing Shots

On the bus Two teenage girls were talking about movies. One was trying to remember the name of "that black actor", the one who isn't Samuel L. Jackson or Denzel Washington. "Fuck!" she said, as she struggled to retrieve his name. "FUCK!"
Every clause of every sentence she spoke ended with an elongated, interrogative "Yeah?" which she formed by opening her mouth as wide as it would go, showing to all who were unfortunate enough to be sitting close by the unmasticated crisps inside it.

On Abington Street I passed a big poster for the Will Smith movie "I Am Legend". (Maybe he was the black actor!) Next to the title of the movie somebody has written, "He dies at the end." Good, now anybody who was going to see the film doesn't have to bother.

Moments after passing the movie poster I saw a man with a virulent cold walking towards the town centre with a pigeon just in front of him trying to pick up a piece of dropped kebab. As he closed in on the pigeon he coughed and it flew startled into the air. But pigeons being the pedantic or dense creatures they are, it landed only a foot or so away still directly in the man's path. And when he coughed again it leapt into the air again.
I was going to stick around and see if this cough-and-startled-flight game was repeated for the quarter of a mile between our present location and the shopping centre, where the man was presumably heading to buy some Veno's, but I didn't have the time.
And somehow watching what took place between man and bird reminded me uncomfortably of my love life.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Bollocks! Now you've ruined the film for me!

Simon

Ralph Murre said...

Still, we all die in the end, don't we? Doesn't necessarily make our stories less interesting.

Anonymous said...

the girls around here have really foul mouths - they're like wharfies. ugh.

-- Glenn

Bruce Hodder said...

Watch "Ned Kelly" instead, bro, if you haven't already. It's the dog's you-know-whats. Loads of violence and good characterisation to rationalise it intellectually!

Bruce Hodder said...

True, Ralph. There's just something about Will Smith I can't bear. He's like the Michael Landon of the Adidas generation.

Bruce Hodder said...

Wharfie. I like that.
The girl on the bus would have been fine if she'd just kept her mouth closed while she was eating.