Hover Flies

Laughter and champagne bubbles tinkled and popped, materialising through the gaps around the door and over the high wall. Traces of rose and water lily lingered in the warm air. Vivaldi cello notes escaped the confines of the garden, and drifted furtively to my ears. Unknown characters awaited discovery, I could sense their clearly defined principles, even from where I had paused. I smoothed black satin and inspected my ruby-lipped reflection as I waited, on the outside.

But on the inside it was not magical, nor secret. I only wish I had stayed on the outside, where the unknown, the potential, and the imagined, flourished and buzzed around my head, like hover flies in the late afternoon heat.