It was a random bend in the road, until that dump truck plowed through the fence and into the old folks home. 88 year old Eustace Musgrave took a juice cup to the eye socket, but luckily, everyone else escaped injury. Still, the upended dump truck made a fine picture, sitting there in the front window with daffodils sticking out the tailpipe.
Someone must have made a few phone calls, 'cause before ya know it, little white cars splashed in all kinds of colorful peacocks and eyeballs showed up. They parked all this way and that, got out and popped their tailgates. Some were quite pretty, most all 'em young. The older ones among them didn't seem to be in charge. Anyway, they all pulled out their three legged stands and oversized cameras. With not a hint of urgency, they all trundled up to the edge there, chatting amongst themselves as if the conversation was already an old one.
I sat and watched them for some time, these strange interlopers from as far as forty five minutes away. They seemed neither happy or sad to be there, kind of like morning shift workers waiting on a bus. Only twice did they scurry around like in the movies, once when a young police fellow came out and another time when a 63 year old volunteer fireman walked by and was momentarily mistaken for an escaped resident of the old folks home.
Other than that, it was pretty dull. The dirtier ones fiddled with their gizmos as the pretty ones paced about and recited lines out loud, as if they were hearing their own private update and were just trying to keep up. Most of them disappeared into their cars until just before the top of the hour, when they sprung out all frantic like, the pretty ones now reciting all the louder as the ugly ones twisted lights and grumbled about "head-nods".
It all got quiet as four sets of 'em lined up with their cameras side by side. Suddenly the pretty ones all started babbling at once, the same strange cadence of their overly inflected speeches jangling with one another. It was like a strong gust blew through a wind chime store, just nowhere near as pleasant. Anyway, just as suddenly as they all started talking, they all stopped, then started again before dramatically stating who they were, where they were and whatever peacock or eyeball sponsored their trip.
Once they were done with that, the pretty ones stomped off as if in an argument with voices in their heads and the ugly ones started moving faster than I'd seen them move all day. Those fellas manhandled that gear like it owed them money, tossed it in the back of those little cars and peeked out of here without saying a word to anybody, as if their next mission was to get away from this little bend in the road as fast as their underpowered little cars would take them...
Strange folk.
