The denim man poured cat food on the promenade right next to where we sat. "Protecting the animals", we learned, after a lot of not-understood French. Then he went forward to the rocks the sea was slapping and put some cat food there too. His jeans matched his jacket and his grey mullet distracted us from the sunset. We watched the sky turn inside out and the food go mushy. It didn't smell so we didn't move. The man went. We watched more of the sky and the people walking by. The noisiest sea in a long while.
The man came back with a dog that kept trying to eat cars. "Seen any cats?" I think he said. We hadn't, but if they wanted to eat the food they had to be prepared for the sea to swallow them like it was trying to swallow the children playing chicken with the biggest tide in Europe. We couldn't tell him this because our French is not quite up to standard. His dog tried to eat the cat food. "That's for cats!" he said, and followed the dog away, giving us a funny look as he left that seemed to imply "Isn't my dog being ridiculous! Hohoho!". Apparently he does this every night.
