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.