| An innocent wind brushes indifferent boughs coaxing soothing whispers, benevolent gestures. An amber streetlight smoulders amid oak leaves casting dappled shade on a pavement lagoon Transient moonlight illuminates the parkland as prepossessing as an infants nightlight, bathing the grass in a cool, silvery balm freeing shooting stars from swings and slides. A feline marauder slinks through the metal fencing startling ancient recollections from distant childhood. When the breeze conspired with hidden assailants a murmuring stool pigeon that betrayed my position while a lone sentry dripped his ochre blood thrashing all the while, garrotted by a leafy assassin. A callous searchlight swept across the sward, so I fled like a Colditz escapee as if moonshine could freeze. The deadly silver sparked off playground scenery, like metallic glints off honed bogeyman tools. No such worries for me now, I am grown, I am a man. Yet unconsciously I find I have quickened my pace, held my breath and flinched at a movement behind… …still it seems, scared of my own shadow. |