13

And the incident was on Zamfir's mind as he traversed the tree-lined boulevards. He noticed a house on the corner with a pile of autumn leaves, raked into a typical autumn lump. Sitting on the pile of leaves was a boy.

"Oh!" cried Zamfir. He realized what house it was. "Hi Stanley!"

Stanley sat still.

"I'm Doris' husband, Zamfir. You're Charlie's friend, aren't you?" They had all met at a party but it slowly dawned on Zamfir that Charlie had an attitude, his friend probably had an attitude, and that chatting with the mailman would go against the protocol of cool.

So he decided not to insist, or the kid might blow him off in some bizarre, hostile way.

Stanley seemed catatonic though. He seemed completely overcome by the falling leaves, piles of leaves and tall trees with their stark branches thrown around from left to right, right to left, top to bottom. In fact his own body seemed to match the swaying branches stroke for stroke, and it was only when Zamfir got very close to the boy, he noticed the boy's eyes were a horrifying GOLD!