There’s a man dancing on the petrol station forecourt. He’s wearing jeans and a tweed jacket and some sort of loafers and his straight out of the eighties fringe flops left and right and left again with every pop and lunge.

A line of people stares out through the glass, watching and waiting for their turn at the checkout. Out front, two guys posing with scooters point and grin and dancing man sees them and waves and just keeps on dancing. There’s no sound but the traffic raring down the dual carriageways and the hushed gush gulp and chug of the diesel pump pumping and the tank of my Multipla drinking and still he dances in time with himself.

It is only as I replace the pump that I realise my foot is tapping, only as my movement stops and I shuffle to replace the pump that I notice my foot was tapping at all.

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Written in response to this week’s Writers’ Adventure Group challenge:

WAG Topic #23: “Ripple”. When our characters walk their worlds, the world reacts. So for this week, look only at reactions. Observe a person and describe the reaction of the world to them. What can you tell about them based solely on the reaction of others? What kind of impression are they making on the world, the environment, the people around them, even on you? What is changing (even subtley) because of their existence? Are they aware of it?