people watching

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‘My bill pleased’ I called to the apron-clad teen as she scampered between green and white tables outside the seafront bar. The remains of my cappuccino clung the sides of the cup, my beer a just pleasant memory as she cleared away my glass. She tucked a square of white paper under a saucer and it flapped like a dying butterfly in the gentle spring breeze.

A cyclist sporting helmet and blue Lycia strayed from his lane, and a blue coiffered lady waved her stick in the air as he startled her little grey Pekinese. Two kids on skate boards clattered past, leapt in the air, landed again then clattered on their way.

A shaggy student meandered along head buried in his weighty tome totally oblivious to others dodging left and right to avoid colliding with him. A trendy young mum pushed her charge along in the latest designer three wheel buggy. Its clumsy little fingers rummaged in a packet of sweets and one fell on the ground below. The child pointed down and looked up and implored its mother to retrieve the purple confectionary, but a gull swooped down then carried it up and up and high in the sky. The child screamed.

An expressionless boy slouched by dragging his tatty trainers along the ground unaware of the irritating hiss hiss emanating from white buttons pressed into his ears.

‘Anything else sir?’ I was suddenly aware of a voice to my left then noticed a smiling face beaming down at me. ‘Did you want anything else?’ I didn’t so I stuck a fiver in her hand, told her to keep the change then joined the crowd as it ebbed and flowed on that perfect spring day.
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