Tim Ward, Mature Flâneur
2 min readOct 11, 2024
Photo by little plant on Unsplash

Scene 1: a blonde woman is lounging with a drink in her bathing suit by a hotel pool. She’s on her phone, waiting for someone to pick up. The camera swings around, and we see two African American kids splashing and having fun in the pool, while their mother watches from the pool edge, dangling her feet in the water. These are the only non-white people at the pool.

The phone answers and a crisp male voice says: “Crime hotline: do you wish to report a crime?”

At that instant, one of the kids pops out of the water next to her mom and gives her a big wet hug. “I love you mommie,” she says, and the mom, now soaked, laughs, looks around and locks eyes for a second with the woman in the phone.

“No, my mistake,” says the woman, and she hangs up the phone.

Scene Two: the camera looks over the shoulder of a middle aged man on a computer in the dark of night. The glowing screen shows a porn-site, with the prompt: “Enter new-user name.” We see the man’s hands hesitate, and we notice a wedding ring on his finger.

“Are you coming to bed dear?” We hear a woman’s voice from another part of the house.”

The man clicks a button, shutting down the computer. “Yes dear, just fixing a mistake,” he says.

Scene Three: we see a woman holding a rifle, as if we are looking down the barrel. The camera swings round, and we see she’s pointing…

Tim Ward, Mature Flâneur

Author, communications expert and publisher of Changemakers Books, Tim is now a full time Mature Flaneur, wandering Europe with Teresa, his beloved wife.