On my way to the car I saw a naked man. He was standing on the path near a bench and a bin. The sight offended me. I don’t want to see some naked old dude, and he was old, anywhere let alone in the sanctity of a public space. I asked him where his clothes were and he simply told me that he felt no need for clothes. He stated that he was born naked and why should he cover himself unless it is to keep warm in the winter and today was clearly a beautifully warm summer day.

“Why should I conform to the restrictive rules put in place by a fashion-obsessed society when I myself feel my most natural and free when clothed as I was when I entered this world?” he explained. “All I’m doing is setting a new fashion. A trend for freedom.” As he spoke, a police car pulled up and two heavily padded young officers handcuffed the elderly nude dude, covered him in a blanket and bundled him into their car, with a little more than what I would call reasonable force under the circumstances.

“What’s in the bag?” one of the officers enquired in a brutish tone. “My swimming stuff.” I answered respectfully as if it was any of his business. Ignorant fuck. Damned bully. Is there any need for such aggression and lack of common decency?

As I walked to my car with my plan still set in stone in my mind, I couldn’t help but think that the old man had a point. I drove to the top of the concrete helter-skelter car park entrance and mounted the contents of my rucksack on the ledge of the top floor, facing east and towards the centre of the town. Thinking about what the old man had said, I stripped naked as the day I was born and set fire to my clothes where they lay. Triggering the timer, I casually headed back to the car, safe in the knowledge that the CCTV systems were all playing a loop recorded earlier in the day, and that I had at least 10 minutes to escape to a safe distance.

Ten minutes later and I found myself  on the top of a nearby hill overlooking the town. The detonator triggered and sure enough, as expected, a large grenade was launched with a trajectory perfectly calculated for the town hall. It was about to hit the building when my heart began to sink. Had I miscalculated? Of course not! Just before hitting the building, the missile exploded mid-air, launching its contents into the air surrounding the area. We didn’t want to kill anyone did we?! And what wonderful contents these were. Millions of little colour paper shapes, flowers, hearts, smiley faces, stars and the like. And every one of them contained a message, written in plain English on the reverse:

“Enough Is Enough”.

The sun had started to set. It was starting to feel a little chilly on top of that hill with my bits flapping in the wind. I wished I hadn’t burned my jeans and jumper.