On a busy Monday morning, the office going crowd stopped dead and watched a man running along the street, as naked as the day he was born.
An old lady sighed loudly. “I knew the world was coming to this”, she said.
I was standing next to her, leaning on my walking stick which supported my trembling knees.
I shrugged. “Seems like clothes are out of fashion these days”, I said.
As much as I tried to look elsewhere, I was tempted to see the pair of healthy buttocks bouncing as he ran. I noticed the old lady was watching them too and, in a voice that dripped of past memories, she said, “My husband had buttocks that looked like those.”
We kept looking in his direction, even after the man had disappeared around the corner, lost in our own chain of thoughts.
That afternoon during lunch, I told my wife about the latest madman in town. She listened intently till I finished and then brushed it off saying, “He must have been caught sleeping with another’s wife.”
That generalization made me discuss with her the various scenarios that must have happened. We missed our siesta and then still discussed over the evening tea.
When we went to bed that night, she slid closer to me and placed her hand on my chest. “I just realized”, she said, “that this is the longest we have spoken to each other for ages.”
I met the old lady on the street the next day and greeted her. She had a smile on her face, that of a sixteen year old who had just fallen in love.
“For the first time since my husband died, I had a great sleep last night”, she explained, “and I’m not even going to tell you about the dream I had”, she winked.
I laughed. Then we stood under the sun, waiting for the madman to come rushing out and add some more flavor to our lives.
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