39 - Saw the ogre.
joneworlds@mailbox.org

I was over at Ellie's unit the other night, and it
was  still dark  in the  morning as  I'm wandering
home.  In the  faint  light I  see something  dark
ahead in  the road, and  in another moment  I know
it's in the shape of an ogre. So I leap behind the
old  telephone switch  box by  the curb  and wait,
peeking around as  quiet and still as  I can. It's
going pretty slow and dragging behind it something
I can't see.  And it walks beside the  side of the
unit there  to the  low retaining wall  behind it,
lifts its big  round body up over it  and heads up
the hillside. I  can barely make out  its shape in
the darkness as it disappears over the ridge.

Sometimes, somehow,  often, I forget  these things
are up there. You don't  hardly ever see them, and
maybe that's the  danger - you get so  used to the
hazard that you forget to  think about it. But now
I'm  reminded,  and  that  we  still  have  to  do
something about it. One day.

And as I come out of  my hiding spot to head home,
I couldn't shake this feeling like I saw something
else  there too,  barely.  Someone, or  something,
hunched and curved, waiting  by the retaining wall
and  then following  the ogre  up the  hill as  it
went. Close, like  it was there to meet  it. And I
thought I saw pointed ears  on its head, like some
animal. But I don't know,  I'm just not sure I saw
that. Or,  maybe those  patches Ellie  had weren't
total duds after all.