26-June-2009 4:12PM

On a bright and sunny afternoon a short and stout blond-haired woman is accosted by a rotund con’s spiel in front of the Dome Tavern on Fourth Avenue South. She presumes to pay no attention and keeps her face direct and forward in unwavering competence. The rotund con at first does not seem phased by this, but then abruptly gives up his presumptuous posturing for his female mark’s brisk gait, and instead turns an about-face on his heel and enters into an elevated monologue, his lips moving rapidly through the bus glass in ever-increasing intensified manner; clearly not pleased with his mark getting away all too easily as she did. He then holds his paper cup of coffee inadvertently like a microphone rapping on a grand stage, his yammering jaw showing no quarter in its onslaught as the bus careens away up on into the city center. The entire sequence then fades into the haze of the ever-spinning days, one blending into another, akin to an ancient tree with so many years built-in it falls by that last lick of wind eddying in its eaves as silently as the rustle of the goodbyes whispering from its brothers and sisters…