044. Protests don't need fists. Or dancing.

Art stood on the still-warm sand and stared at the ocean. The afternoon sun caught his hair in a way that would have been majestic, if the spikes of his mohawk hadn’t broken up the light. He set his stopwatch and waited. Today, it would be 82 minutes before someone came to arrest him.

Nothing made people more uncomfortable than – well, nothing. He’d been picked up for loitering, public nuisance and disturbing the peace a total of 134 times, all because he dared to stop and stand still while around him people shopped or cleaned or ran or met up or danced or ate or worked out.

You could do all kinds of things in public spaces. You could yell at your children or read bad literature or suck on a cigarette. You could chat to your grandma or play soccer or take a conference call on your mobile. You could eat your lunch or watch porn on your iPad or kiss your lover. You could lie. You could tell racist jokes. You could cry. You could plot ways to destroy the entire known universe, and – as long as you used a notebook so people could be satisfied you were doing something – nobody would raise an eyebrow.

But, when you stood still, people told their kids to get away from you. First, they avoided eye contact, then they sidled up to someone else nearby. “What do you think he’s doing?” they’d whisper to each other.  “D’you think he’s dangerous?” they’d wonder. “He looks like a nutter,” they’d agree.

And then the cops would show up and the court would mandate community service and he’d wind up planting irises on some downtown median strip.

When it came down to it, the most subversive thing you could do was nothing. Nothing at all.