by David Chaproniere

Created on: August 27, 2007

It was bright pink. With spikes. Big spikes, standing high off his head, a zig-zag row of shocking pink, shaved bald either side. Standing at the bus stop, aggressively chewing gum, his whole posture and look screamed "Look at me! Look, I'm so different!" Skin-tight tartan trousers decorated with heavy chains; a heavily studded black leather jacket; a short, black, torn T-shirt; high-laced, thick-soled, black, Doc-Martin boots; eyes outlined thick with black eye-liner. "You can't ignore me. I'm a rebel. Pure anarchy. I am shocking."

Also at the bus stop stood a plain, middle-aged man. His hairstyle was about the messiest aspect of his look: bedhead, a bit tatty, all the rage these days if only to be able to run wax through newly washed hair and scrunch it up and go. No more fiddling about with neat flicks and side partings for him! So convenient.

He was dressed in plain jeans, good cut, latest style, nearly everyone else wearing them. A checkered shirt, the in-thing this summer, worn untucked to covered a slightly bulging belly. Middle-aged spread, becoming difficult to control. Smart trainers, never used for sport. Casual but safe, and easily overlooked, running with the crowd.

The punk looked at the safe middle-aged man and gave him a thinly disguised sneer. Look at that wimp, so conformist, so plain. He nodded his head to the thrashing guitar piercing his eardrums via his MP3 player, so loud that the tinny sound could be heard by everyone around him. The twerp in the blue jeans was probably listening to something really lame, as safe as his clothes, as uninspiring as his waxed bedhead hair. Old before his time. Probably always was. Pathetic! Not like me - original, threatening.

The "twerp" in the blue jeans looked at the punk and smirked. I bet he thinks he's so different, he thought, so original. Been there, seen it, done it. He's behaving like he's the first person ever to have sported a mohican hairdo and a leather biker jacket. And those trousers and boots - I had those years ago, before this twit was even born, when he was nothing more than a twinkle in his dad's eye!

Sex Pistols, The Clash, The Buzzcocks, Souxsie and the Banshees - the middle-aged guy had head-banged and pogo'd at their gigs and others, often spitting at the band as the band spat at them. He was an original, he did it all the first time around at the end of the 1970s. He'd had electric blue spikes set to steely sharpness with superglue, safety pins in his ear and lip connected with a chain. He and his pals didn't listen to music through headphones - they listened to it loud on ghetto blasters, shocking little old ladies and upstanding people in the community. This vision before him was nothing but a poor carbon copy of a style from years gone by. He stared at the punk with disdain and turned up the volume on his iPod.

Neither of them said anything. The punk sneered; the middle-aged man smirked. Could there ever be a mutual respect between them? Unlikely.

If only they'd known that they were listening to the same band through their headphones.

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