Yesterday I was chatting to a man at the bus stop.

He wore brown leather shoes and a short sleeved shirt. He was eating a salad with a wooden fork from Pret. I didn’t know the fork was from Pret but I guessed so. Pret wasn’t far away.

The forks from Pret are not very practical, really, because the prongs are so small. I’d been looking at him for a while thinking this. The prongs are really small.

I think he noticed me looking. I think there is a way of eating a salad when you know no one’s watching, and there is a way of eating a salad when you’re being watched, and I could sense a real change in the air.

“These little forks eh.” I said, because I knew he knew I was watching and I thought it would be weird if I didn’t say anything.

He was perching on one of the little red seats that aren’t really for sitting on at all.

“The prongs are so small.”

He looked up from his salad and said, “Hm?”

And then I said thank you and left.