A man on a side street spent the afternoon repainting a battered scooter while being watched with the sort of intensity usually reserved for coronations.
Within minutes, speculation spread that the fresh paint must signal a hidden gang, an allegiance switch, or a very committed errand.
Several residents were heard discussing ‘the red stripe meaning trouble’ despite the stripe being, by all accounts, mostly a stripe.
A passing auntie said the whole thing looked less like a criminal underworld and more like ‘a fellow trying to make the machine less embarrassing’.
By dusk, the scooter was still just a scooter, though now with a considerable amount of backstory.