There he sat on the small concrete wall behind his house. He’d forgotten what it was like, just how earthy the smell, how spongy the moss. The sun was shining, not a cloud in the sky, but Henri sat blanketed in the cool blue shadow between his house and the back side of his rear neighbor’s garage. This space had never been good for anything, a five foot swath of barren dirt between structures. The front yard, the South side of his two-story colonial, always soaked in sun, but back here… worthless.
He pondered, arms locked, hands on knees. What did it mean?
“What did what mean?,” he asked. There was no point of reference for this moment.
Then a resonant hum, like a rung tuning fork in the hands of a sneaking prankster, came from everywhere, especially above, and he looked straight up at the narrow strip of blue sky, startled at just how frightened he was. Blood swished along his eardrums, his heart pounding hard. Not since a child had be felt the need to hide, now, anywhere.