Urban Magic...
On Sunday there is a farmer's market on California Ave. Each week the fish-seller leaves behind a pile of shaved ice.
Today one of my customers was the mother of a two-year old boy. He needed a washroom, so I sent him to the health-food store across the street. On the way back he stopped to play in the snow. He protested when mom tried to get him back into the store to look for more books (they already had a substantial pile behind the counter) I snuck out to find out if there was enough ice to make a small snowman. Constructed something knee-high that was vaguely snowman shaped. Had to go back in to help a couple customers. Little boy comes to the front and notices snowman. Runs back to get his mom.
Unfortunately in the short time it took to get her, the snowman was attacked by a wandering monster. Some passing woman couldn't resist kicking it over. Woman was embarrassed when she realized that she might have destroyed the work of a small child and clumsily stammered a lame apology.
I started to rebuild. The mom asked her son to help look for something to use as eyes. Another man drifted over to say he had been watching the woman for about 3 minutes before she kicked it over. He had been thinking about bringing his own boy over to see it.
I salvaged most of it, then had to go back in to help more customers. Out the window I can see a group of people gathering around the pile of shaved ice. Could hear gleeful tricksters laughing in the background.
When next I looked, the bionic snowman was wearing a hat, and had been joined by two smaller ones. All three had faces made of acorns, leaves, small twigs. Two of them were wearing stove-pipe hats out of brown lunch-bags. What had started as a moment of silliness had turned into a community project.
I have been having immense amounts of fun with this. Customers keep pointing them out. When customers ask where they came from. I tell them "the fish-monger". It makes their day more surreal.
edit: a guy just walked in. he's waiting for AAA to restart his car; blown fuse. He came in because he wanted to know where the snowmen came from. gave him the short answer and the actual story. He showed me a cigar he was about to smoke, and offered to give the stub to the snowmen when he finished.
the real magic is seeing a small action make the world a little brighter