It was a bright autumn day, quiet with little wind and few people rushing, everything calmer after a torrent of rain the previous few days. Fulgenzio sat on a park bench, from which he could see the centre of town, the city’s museum prominently placed among some of the larger shops. He stretched his arms on the top of the bench, the bubbly rise and fall of moss and the scratchiness of old wood pleasant reminders that he was outside after a weekend sheltered from the rain. The bench was positioned just in front of a stocky tree, its low-hanging branches looming over him like a giant cobweb, allowing only snatches of shining sunlight to pass through. Fulgenzio watched the path on the opposite side of the road as the number of people grew over lunchtime.

          His eye was caught by a woolly lime green hat, a flash of colour among the browns and greys. Fulgenzio watched the man carrying something under one arm – something rather large – bobbing up and down along the path, his lime green hat a sure sign as to where he was even when the rest of him was obscured by other passers-by. The man made his way to the traffic lights directly opposite Fulgenzio, ready to cross the street. Now that the man was face on, Fulgenzio caught sight of what he was carrying. A painting, an oil painting perhaps, trees Fulgenzio thought, and some blue sky. Fulgenzio looked up at the man again and noticed he had a patch of grey-white splashed on the collar of his overcoat. The man crossed the road now, looking over his shoulder twice in the time it took him to reach the other side.

          The man continued to look over his shoulder every few seconds as he made his way along the path this side of the road, Fulgenzio watching him through the gaps in the black metal fence. He realised that the man may be making his way into the park – he was ten feet away from the gate. He followed the man’s line of sight as he looked over his shoulder once more, and saw another man who appeared to be following. This second man looked rather determined, his eyebrows sunk deep in a frown so that they seemed an extension of his dark eyes. As the man carrying the painting opened the gate – hurriedly closing it again as he realised the other man had gained pace – Fulgenzio felt a rush of anxiety running through his limbs, as though his blood had suddenly thickened. 

          Suddenly everything seemed to be moving too quickly for Fulgenzio to think logically. This was nothing to do with him, and whatever dispute these two men had should be of no relevance to his day. It shouldn’t affect him any more than the number of fir cones that lay on the ground around him, or whether or not a certain coffee shop he had no intention of visiting was open. But as his anxiety became more pronounced, Fulgenzio was in no state to console himself with any of this. The man carrying the painting was now just five feet away from the bench. Despite feeling like the world was spinning at twice its normal rate, a second of calmness chanced upon Fulgenzio as he saw another grey-white splash on the man’s overcoat and realised that this man must be a painter. He must have painted this work himself. Perhaps it was this realisation, and the fact that Fulgenzio was an aspiring artist himself, that made him think he ought to help this man.

          Fulgenzio looked back to the man following, then back to the artist, both men running now, the artist awkwardly as if his old bones and muscles were resisting the signals from his brain. Fulgenzio found himself unwittingly standing up from the bench and, with two quick glances first to the artist then to the man following him, decided in a flash to intervene. The following man was just a foot from Fulgenzio as he outstretched his front arm to try and grab the artist’s overcoat when Fulgenzio tackled him to the ground. 

          ‘What the hell are you doing?’ the man said, in a deep, formal voice.

          ‘You’re trying to steal that man’s painting!’ Fulgenzio squealed, his voice two octaves higher than normal, and it was at this moment Fulgenzio noticed a crest on the man’s uniform – the crest belonging to the museum on the other side of the road.

          ‘That man stole the painting!’ said the museum employee, and they watched, both still on the ground, as the man hurried awkwardly away.

          ‘But … he’s an artist!’

          ‘What on earth made you think that?’

          ‘The paint! On his coat!’

          ‘That’s not paint, that’s bird muck. That man is homeless, and he’s been sleeping on that same bench that you were just sitting on.’