On a Travel Home

19 June 2010


Heavy night air burdened Burgundy as he sat to rest on a flower box near the avenue. Fatigued from a rigorous calendar, the humid atmosphere took to antagonize his pulsing temples. As soon as he took his repose a clamor broke out of the alley immediately to his left, tossing and scuffling, echoing off the brick narrowway. A stout man of middle age appeared rustling through a refuse container and as Burgundy's eye became accustomed to the gloom he noticed the little man wearing knickers and a a jerkin of the deepest green, adorned with red lace upon the cuffs and breast. He also wore a cap of some other distinct and distant fashion, though it was merely a small ornament sitting atop a nest of course black hair.
Strange murmuring arose between the din of cars passing by, the little urchin’s noise spilling out from the alleyway like a heathen mouse caught in a tube of wrapping paper; and so caught in his ruckus the little man took no notice of the gentleman who’d stopped to rest just a few yards away.
Burgundy began to grow stiff with fear as the ravishment in front of him carried on. During the late hour only the random bus would pass by and the sidewalks north of downtown were void of any foot traffic. In the thick, breezeless air the devil’s movements were all the more tormenting and just as Burgundy rose with every intention to make a quick dash across the median, the small man jumped into the air and landing perpendicular to his foraging, gleamed through the shadows with a face of menacing delight.
With a cockeyed turn of the head he muttered incoherently, and pointing a disproportionately long finger to the trash heap from whence he he emerged, asked of his voyeur's opinion of some matter unintelligible. As if expecting an answer a disappointed countenance overtook his frame and he stood puzzled with air of light melancholy. One more time he repeated the inaudible phrase, and one more time Burgundy sat, mouth agape. The little man snuffed and with a leap set to the top of a lamp post, shouting down insults from his perch. Then, as quick as he ascended, disappeared in a bolt of lightning and could be heard shrieking across the thunderclap overhead.
It began to rain and Burgundy took to home.