bjalla

Still remembering an image from the holiday rush from (how strange, still!) last year:

This one from the 3/4-size faux town square that increasingly serves as the hub of all retail activity hereabouts. You drive there and then you stroll about, pretending that you strolled all the way there -- after all, it couldn't be far in this quaint and obviously old little brick-built settlement. Older places are so nice that way. Forget your troubles, your exurban ennui, and above all the massive parking lots extending in all directions, just past the Potemkin village facades of the Limited and Ann Taylor.

Now add the further pleasure of hearing the lazy hooves of bored and be-jingled horses on the pavement (someone's oversight not to put in cobbles -- but overlook this) pulling carriages of shoppers. Ring in the season, urge their lackadaisical drivers, whether you like it or not, and chew not the bit. Surely, one of them has a poetic bent and, as he swings his furry hocks in time, is mulling on the bells bells bells bells bells bells bells.