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continued:-
Then came the day--the evening-- on which the puppet people arrived.
They came into the clearing from the path. Brightly clothed and tall-as if walking on stilts attached somehow to their legs under their cloaks, attached so that their hands remained free. What was most striking though were the puppet heads which each of them wore, completely covering their own heads. Half of them wore heads which were cube like, and half wore heads which were round. They had apertures for eyes, breathing, hearing and speaking--though they spoke not a word--as far as we who watched could tell.
On the morning after their arrival we awoke to see them standing together in a group in the sunrise in the clearing around the watering hole---which we all needed to use, so we reasoned that this spot was chosen with intent.--and so it proved.
Two of their number had drums suspended by straps around their necks in the manner of a marching band.
Suddenly there was a drum roll, and then another, beating out a slow rhythm. The whole group began to move in time with the rhythm, passing in between each other, around each other, forming lines, back forward, circling. The performance was both mesmerising and peaceful to behold.
Suddenly the drumming stopped. They stood frozen, in silence.
Then the drummers began beating rapidly on the sides of their drums with their drumsticks in a disturbing and agitated cacophony. Suddenly a '' square head'' spun round and waved a finger in the face of the ''round head'' standing behind. then elsewhere in the group a ''round head'' raised a fist to a 'square head''. The drummers stopped beating, and the group began to split up into two opposing lines, one of ''square heads'' and the other of ''round heads''.
The slow drumming began again, the two lines moved toward one another, and as they did so the tempo of the drumming increased. They came closer and closer, until at a point when they were almost on top of each other, the drumming stopped abruptly.
What happened next shook all who had by now gathered to our core--for each of the performing group shrieked with a concentrated anger which is impossible to adequately describe. As they shrieked they also fell to the ground in a variety of positions as if having been struck suddenly dead.--And there they stayed motionless.
We who were watching slowly began to move away, wondering at the spectacle and its purpose. As we did so, the ''dead'' got up and took up te same positions as we had seen them in at sunrise.
To our amazement, they began the whole performance again--and when that ended, they then did exactly the same once more.
After this last performance however, they did not reform as if for another performance, but instead walked in single file through we who were spectating and continued onward, eventually gone from view.
In the following days there came a different feeeling in the air to that of disharmony to which we had begun to become accustomed. It was as if the memories of how we had been were carried back to us on a breeze--A breeze of understanding some said. We began to talk and share as before, and others said this was because we had found again our innocence, yet this time through understanding, and with this understanding we tasted the true freedom which comes from being able to understand ourselves sufficiently to avoid being taken in, exploited, manipulated. Now we live in a manner of our own choosing, free to cope with the many difficulties which we know we shall face with chosen co-operation and compassion--no longer trapped or tricked into a world of deceit and artifice.
The dividers have gone, perhaps they were never here, perhaps they were, perhaps there is now nothing for them to hook into, so they have fallen away. Perhaps they have also changed and now find what they are looking for by being amongst us. Who knows.
So long. Good wishes.
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