Three Blind Mice

Starry Night, (detail) 1889

Vincent van Gogh

The three girls were all dressed the same, in clothing that not only suited the time of day, nine pm; but also the season of winter: Black.

Black knitted hats, black anoraks, black jeans, black boots. All worn to suit the minus three degrees Celsius of the January evening.

They were all latter day Gothics, remnants of an age where they would have been Cure groupies, but were born too late. Not one part of their attire was other than black.

Two babbled incessantly while the other supped on a can of Coke. The vermillion of the can the only contrast in colour to the black of the night surrounding us.

In the girls' appearance, there was only one difference, and that was that one wore spectacles; the type that one would associate with a nineteen fifties secretary, and which had now returned to be fashionable. But she was not the girl of interest.

All three girls stood by me, and I assumed were waiting for the same tram as I.

The girl whom had nervously supped her Coke; maybe because she could not fit herself into the conversation, furtively looked around now for a place to deposit the empty receptacle.

Not being involved in the chatter meant that she now had nothing in her hands to distract the other two, so would have to make conversation.

She caught my eye.

A waste bin was no more than ten metres from where we both stood.

A damp, tram shelter bench was closer.

I heard the tram approach and looked left to see the No.7 brow the hill.

When I looked back, the empty can of Coke lay on the bench.

As I boarded the tram I peered over my shoulder to see the girls walking away, disappearing into the winter's mist. No tram was required.

I could not understand why they had stood there.