the auditorium steamed.

A thin man writhed, his shadow a huge, shifting thing.

"It's murder," he sang, as he waged war on us all

with an explosion of drums,

a huge, roiling gong

and a sneer.

a drill bores wormholes.

Silence collapses.

orange algae bloom toxicly in the shallows.

my new man

has turned my kitchen cupboards upside down.

strange, tubular jellyfish,

or ghostly eels:

dodgy strip lights strobing overhead.

we crunch through burned brush to the brow of the hill. The secret valley lies below: the lake at its centre, its two hills steep and spread thick with heather.

a boy bounces on a trampoline.

He closes his eyes,

inhales,

tastes the air with his fingers.