Today Erica at the Daily Post said,

At a concert. Snap. At a restaurant. Snap. Watching the sun set. Snap. These days, everything feels like a Kodak moment. What happens when you stop taking pictures, and use words to capture a moment instead?

This is what happened when I didn’t snap today.

Snapped Flags

A windblown flash of colour caught my eyes. He turned, dropped a stub of fire to the ground and rubbed the heel of a Nike trainer into it, pressing the pavement like a dog leaving its scent until it was extinguished. The colour flashed again. He swept aside green fabric with a white cross emblazoned on it, the flag of Devon, revealing scruffy denim with frayed edges.

Intrigued, I looked up; two people were ahead of him as he waited to get on the bus. I stopped, fumbled for my phone camera but changed my mind, what if he saw me . . . Instead I acted as if I might just get on the bus. He was wearing a letterbox red gilet, somewhat effeminate, over a bold shirt with a large black and white check pattern, below a crown of orang-utan hair.

As he moved up the queue I took my eyes off his hair, and his garments became clearer in the light of the bus. He bent to pick up a bag, stooping from the waist down, releasing more fabric, dipping onto the damp path at the front. It looked like he had a dozen or more oblongs of bright silk attached to his middle. How? Tied to a belt? Made into a silk version of a grass skirt?

No-one else seemed to notice him; if they did they weren’t acknowledging him in any way. I was blocking the way and had to move aside and I nearly missed his ascent of the steps. Before the bus protected him, a final small gust of breeze caught him, bright as a Morris Dancer on amphetamines, blowing first a Union Jack,  next, a red flag with a star and a crescent moon, I hunted back through my memory Turkey, yes that was it, Turkey. Stripes of black, red and yellow, another blue with a small Union Jack in its corner, and a Star Spangled Banner, bold as it should be. The door closed behind him, narrowly missing blue with yellow stars in a circle, familiar of course, the EU flag.

It is a public building, but not in the centre of town, and there were no events taking place, no festival, although he wouldn’t have looked out of place at Glastonbury. Perhaps I’m just dull; I wonder how I would look in a flag skirt. Maybe if I were younger I could get away with it. I didn’t even get to see his face, but I could tell that he was middle aged and happy in his own skin. I suppressed a laugh, people never stop surprising me.

Does this seem real? well it is, I actually did see this today. What have you seen today that made you smile? You all know how hard it is for me to not take photos, how about you? If you care to share go to . . .

http://dailypost.wordpress.com/2013/12/02/weekly-writing-challenge-snapshots/