The city had long since settled down, lending to the pearly sodium lamps that lined the Raj Path, barely hours earlier shrouded under a diaphanous veil of dust and smoke, a surreal clarity that seemed almost magical to behold; hear closely enough and you could almost hear the silent, murmuring sighs of the evening relapsing into the night. The astral necklace of yellow that embraced the boulevard flickered every now and then as if in silent assent to the hypnotic impression of a sheer capriciousness that the vista seemed to radiate, like the undisturbed, undulating surface of a serene lake that, with the slightest human touch or by the mere indolent descent of a dry, desiccated leaf , would dissolve into a thousand asynchronous ripples, taking away with it, the star speckled skies and the flamboyant moon that found rest and respite in its silvery expanse. The somnolent breeze meandered through the tableau, causing here a torpid feline to curl up closer to its mother, whistling there through the crevices of an improperly barred gate, playing a rhythm of its own with the staccato of the catch striking intermittently against the half fastened bolt. It caressed the trees lining the street with its fingers, the oh so gentle fingers, causing every leaf to revel in its moment of personal attention that it afforded even as the mild rustle of the dried brown umbrage added its own unique tune to the masterful symphony that seemed to permeate the landscape. Indeed, if one were to assume that that moment in space and time was one of the rare trysts when the realms of reality get entangled in the meshes of another more ethereal dimension, and that any moment now it would vanish in a sparkling shower of shimmering magic dust he wouldn't be too far off the mark.
