By eight the doughnut stall had a queue of people who claimed they were only there to be polite. The holes, they said, had learned curtains.
Each hole wore a pair of drapes the size of thumbnail napkins. They did not snap open. They waited until the sugar had settled, then drew aside just wide enough for one warm look at the street.
We asked at the stall. "Yesterday a hole nodded before it showed my mother the jam," said a man holding a paper bag as carefully as a hat. "She nodded back. She will not take a closed one now."
The keeper keeps a tiny notebook of thanks beside the tongs. One line, in pencil: "Curtains were polite. Sugar stayed on."
A day later the same man came back with his mother. They stood a little to the side until a hole finished its nod, then they both said good morning, very quietly, so as not to startle the glaze.