Weihnachtsmarkt

Snow falls onto the fires from the carbon paper sky, and dusk slithers down behind it to cloak the night market. 

He lifts the scarf away from his face for a moment to breathe in the redolant smells, roasting meat and onions, the exotic spice smell of the Arabian cooking tent, and a heavy dull wax smell in the back of the nostrils from the candle lanterns sputtering overhead. 

There is a new juggler this year, just a skinny kid with blond lank hair and a face turned inward as he concentrates on tossing the white balls around; from here it looks as though he is juggling snowballs.

The band behind him consists of two drummers, one of whom is beating a rhythmn on the stretched tight hide, and a three strong wind section, two youths and a girl in her mid twenties, who also plays a flute, the notes skipping around as the balls rise and fall. 

The girl, it is her, the red haired vixen from last year that he has not managed to shake from his mind. 

Her hands dance on the instrument as he pulls the scarf back across his face, and moves away to the Glühwein tent to wonder he will do now that he has seen her again.


(last year)