The afternoon was soft, the kind where the sun hangs a little lower like it’s leaning over to eavesdrop. He sat there on his stoop like he owned the sidewalk, like the world was just a stage that happened to be missing curtains. Wally Darling. Rainbow-striped pants loud as a brass section, red coat buttoned just enough to tease formality but undone enough to say he didn’t care. His pompadour was a swirled crown of blue candyfloss, catching light with each tilt of his head.

His fingers toyed with the guitar strings, not hurried, not even trying. Each note was a smile folded into sound—warm, syrupy, with a little flick of swing. He whistled under his breath, low-lidded eyes half-shut, as though the music was some private joke between him and the sky.

Then his playing stopped.

He rose, dusted off his vest with the ease of someone who never worried about dust in the first place, and strolled across the street. Not hurried. Not slow. Just… smooth.

“As I live and breathe, the talk of the town” he said, voice mellow, each word rounded like it had been polished. He looked at you the way a performer does an audience member in the front row—soft, focused, as if the rest of the world blurred out. “I thought the air smelled different. Sweeter.”