A Festival in an Indian Village
Children and youths clap and whoop to the beat of tambourines, dancers whirl and caper in the dirt square. Now in steps a new entertainer, a strange stooped figure with wild white eyes. He begins to sway, the children clap and smile. Suddenly their smiles turn sour as the music grows weirder, his eyes grow whiter. Then they too begin to sway, as if against their will. Terror grips them as the figure dances; his limbs lengthen; he towers above them like a clown-colored tree; the sun is blotted out by him. On and on wails the weird music, like a wind that shakes away all joys, all hopes and good smells, and the figure keeps swaying, lengthening, enclosing the whole cosmos. The children have now become part of him, dangling from his many teats like brightly colored bells. They are screaming now, merging with the music that wails and kicks up to a final pitch…
The sunlight shines down upon them. The figure is gone. Nervous smiles are exchanged. They feel themselves released from the grip of a horrible dream and, slowly, they begin to clap again.