AFTERNOON

A gilded choir of wind chimes continually blaze here at the rear of the carnival, and the stomach warming scent of meat-smoke breathes out from underneath an old tight lipped outdoor cooker.

White-hot sunlight bawled through a cloudless sky, aiming itself down, elbowing through a jagged volley of shards made of broken mirrors. The fragments clung onto the sunlight greedily and dazzled any straying eye with a tiara of sparks that stuck behind the eyelids until blinking blotted them out. The broken pieces protrude up out of weedy soil as a superstitious decor, castled by a motley family of other strange ornaments meant to ward off bad spirits or amuse onlookers. The shut-eyed grin of a potbellied gnome crossing its arms sagely stationed with an array of varicolored plastic butterflies with goofy painted eyes wired onto sun-bleached spokes. A poised, rusty stone cat with no pupils sat quietly, uncannily.