faux pas
They'd been walking in a Venetian square when Moses commented on the irreverence of birds. He'd pointed out the million and five pigeons grappling for purchase on an ornamental pillar. The million and five pigeons resting on every inch of every artistic surface available. Pooing on priceless Turkish mosaics and statues of the patron winged lion. Pooing on screaming tourists. Trying to land in their hair.
Moses shrugged that it made him think birds had absolutely no regard for beauty.
He'd said it pleasantly enough; a rumble in his chest. Nevertheless Brooklyn stopped walking, and they looked back at him, stalk still under the beating sun, against a backdrop of a million and five flapping wings and grappling claws. Un sun-visored, unsweating, unsmiling. Looking at Moses as though he'd just said something mean about his mother.
Brooklyn's face said, 'My mother is a SAINT.'
Moses sweated numbly. They all did. Until Brooklyn gestured at the million and five people, stomping and stumbling over cobblestones centuries older than they, worth centuries more respect, sun-visored, sweating, stupidly smiling and colliding, taking pictures of one another screaming when pigeons landed on their seed-clutching fingers.
Brooklyn asked, his face twisted, "The irreverence of who..?"