Hat man

The man in the hat ain’t buyin’ it. “Yeah, right,” he says, grinning ear-to-ear.

Hat man tilts his chin back, savoring the musk of sweater man’s spurious arguments. For him, the conversation is an exercise, the topic a thing to be hoisted and dropped. It makes the mental muscles burn.

But for sweater man, the topic is a fragile thing. The hoisting and the dropping distress him.