Almost Xanadu

Winged mannequins dot the forest trail, forest fairies in the dale - so lifelike in their chalkware skin, unexpected in the vale. Stumbling under their glossy gaze, lost inside a leafy maze - I back up slowly, turn and run, clawing through the morning haze. "Join us", they plead now - reaching, falling, all of them so sweetly calling "You need some flowers in your hair", as I am gasping, crawling. "You could be one of us", they sigh, "abandoned here we know not why, creating almost Xanadu - we never have to live or die." At wood's green edge I glimpse the street and glance back, oddly incomplete: I see just pallid mannequins posed stiffly in the summer heat.