Scenes from the city: Speaking in sign

It’s a busy city corner, roaring with life.

Trams are trundling by, cement trucks churn, air brakes hiss, cars blare and swerve past. Pedestrians are hustling past, talking loudly at each other or on their phones.

Whistles and yells from nearby construction sites. Bulldozers, loaders and excavators crunching through earth. Diesel generators and power tools and heavy machinery grinding, drilling and pounding. Cranes screeching overhead.

There’s a man in his thirties seated at a table outside a cafe. He’s smiling and gesticulating wildly but you can’t see who he’s sitting with because there’s a wide column blocking your view. How can anyone hear anything?

You step forward to see there’s no one sitting with him. Instead he has his phone propped up against a vase, speaking in sign with a friend on the screen.