*****
Swathed in a thick purple cloak pulled tight for warmth, there sat the man in the shadows like a stone set unsinking upon water, peering and never blinking at the starlit outline of the garden gate. He had seen the white beam erupt into the sky, branching out like the very soul of a tree. He had seen the eerie green glow through the cracks in the fence. He heard the gardener’s primal roar and the sickening crack that preceded the perfect silence, not to mention all the nonsense the old man had been shouting earlier–the word pence over and over, as if in his senility he had suffered a sun-addled epiphany about all of life’s bitter losses being won back with one lucky coin.