Echoes of Yesterday

Every year the sea returned the same parade: the same riders, balloons and song from a vanished summer. The colourful rhinoceros was expected to take his old place in the centre and repeat every step. ‘Tradition keeps us together,’ the others said. But each repetition left his colours paler.

This year, when the first drum echoed from the water, he remained on shore. The parade continued without him, stumbled, then changed formation. Some riders cried; others discovered new steps. At dusk he entered the sea by a different path and joined for one unplanned measure.

Yesterday did not shatter. It made room. The next year the parade returned altered, carrying memory as a rhythm rather than a command.