Sussurus

They move about in circles, the grey-cloaked ones, listening, listening, to the wind moving through the coconut tree leaves. Sometimes the wind plucks a coconut. From that height it could kill. So far, no one has died.

I stand at the edges, licking my lollipop, chin smeared with red candy, watching them. All that discipline. What would it take to be one of them? To move in those quiet circles and avoid the coconuts?

They ignore me of course. A kid at the edges with her lolly, watching with large interested eyes, just doesn't exist.

I wish I could see their faces.

Jackie comes to stand beside me. She breathes deeply:

"Where is the Horse and the Rider?
Where is the Horn that was blowing?
They have passed like Rain on the Mountains,
Like Wind in the Meadows.
The Days have gone down in the West,
Behind the Hills,
Into Shadow."

It seems vaguely appropriate.

Julie gambols up like a parti-coloured harlequin with milk chocolate on her eyebrows: "What's 'taters' precious? What's 'taters', eh?"

I intone gravely: "Now for Wrath...now for Ruin...and a Red Dawn..."

We charge and scatter the grey spectres. They flap their cloaks, eager to escape and I throw mine into the sea over the fence but it swerves sharply falls into the sky. Jackie keeps hers under her coat and Julie allows hers to lick her eyebrows.

We bow and back away. Bow and back away. Bow and back away.

The leaves continue to rustle. It is always cold under these trees.