Elegance

There was a man on the bay, beneath the sweeping branches of a weeping willow.

He sat on a half-hidden bench, his decomposing clothes draped over stained skin, watching the curving currents traverse an opaque river. He sat in silence for a moment, before delicately unwrapping his meal for the day, and with the lightest of touches, unfolded a napkin. Just as a leaf falls naturally from a tree, the napkin escaped from his hand with an effortless freedom, yet defined purpose, to land on his knee.

His fingers wrapped around his fork and knife and pressing slightly, he carved the meal into perfectly proportioned pieces, easy to digest. To bystanders, it looked as if this disheveled man was dining inside an unseen banquet hall. The elegance and grace to which he ate, accompanied by formidable posture, was so obscure to them, that a group of twenty strangers watched in awe as the vagabond ingested his only meal for the day.