Evening Interlude

Rain-drenched streets gleam in the glow of the sodium lamps as the second shift waits in the bus queue, chattering like children after a Saturday matinee. Moon-bright puddles flash, and leaves tremble in the trees by the park, sent shivering by the wind's insistent edge, and the lights along the distant motorway glimmer, red, bound for the harsh, gaunt hills to the north, and white, for the cities below this ragged, redbrick town and southeast to London. The bus rumbles the people away to their homes and silence settles on this hill of dreams, where one by one the porch lights go out, the blue-grey TVs flicker off, and the neighbourhood falls into a sweet and gentle sleep.