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As an afternoon longs briefly over a City boulevard where the cold rain, which recently fell, clears, and the lingering last drops splatter on unfurled umbrellas with a “splat, splat,” Mister Charles “Lighthouse” Woolseeker stands at the Newspaper Stand.

A man (the name of who he fails to remember) stands behind the counter on which piles of newspapers have been neatly stacked, and gives a perfunctory nod of acknowledgment.

Their daily afternoon ritual.

“Weather is a bit intolerable today,” Mister Woolseeker offers. “But, the air is fresh. Clean.”

Another nod.

Usually, it’s the Times.

Yet today (of all days!), today another newspaper grabs his eyes and comes under his scrutiny. The newspaper is on a stack of papers that fill the spot the Standard usually occupies. This usurper is mere tabloid. On the cover is a woman. She wears a bikini. Which opens Mister Woolseeker’s memory to a time long ago and a place far away. Not a memory really, but a modicum of nostalgia. Almost a dream.

He hesitates.

The woman stands between him and his Times.

Finally, he stretches his arm over the woman to secure his copy of the Times.

A single solitary drop, which he was not conscious of, slips unannounced from his coat sleeve, and splats unceremoniously onto the tabloid’s cover, between the printed ample cleavage of our woman in the bikini.

“Now you’ve done it, Lighthouse,” he mutters.

The man behind the stacks of newspapers follows Mister Woolseeker’s eyes down to the cleavage. The drop, absorbed by the newsprint, spreads, growing larger and larger like a cancer.

“Couldn’t have hit it better if you tried,” the man (finally!) says.

“I’ll pay for it.”

The man behind the counter nods.

Their business concluded, Mister Woolseeker departs the Newspaper Stand, his contraband securely under his arm, and hidden in the Times ‘Markets Report’ section.

He walks along the boulevard.

The rain resumes.

He’s suddenly hungry.