As I was cycling down mill road yesterday, I saw some familiar figures.

After a moment’s reflection, I realized that I was recognizing them from a time a few years back, when, as I'd been wandering along the same road, the whole street had been suddenly lit up by the appearance of a curious translucent orb which descended somewhere between the Al-Amin store and a particular lamppost.

As it hovered there for a bit a fascinated group – including many of those I was seeing now - soon congregated round to speculate on what on earth it was doing there. When I passed by later, they were still there, having followed it a bit further down the road to a point just over the bridge – it was strange to see how they’d changed even since that morning; some of them had lit up and were glowing with a kind of faint orange colour, one woman was crying even as she was smiling. I asked them what they were going to do next. ‘We’ll probably stay with it for a while, follow it and see where it goes,’ an elderly gentleman told me. I thought this sounded like a very good idea.

I went back some weeks later, and they were still there, with some new faces among them. I thought I could see the orb in the middle of the group, but as I got closer I saw with curiosity that it wasn’t in fact the original orb at all, but an almost exact copy, made of tin foil, chicken wire and silver-painted papier maché, suspended from the lamppost by fishing wire. I didn’t want to interrupt them, since they were so intent on watching it; but I nearly fell off my bike when ‘There – it moved!’ yelled a man I recognized, who worked at the post office. And indeed the object was swinging in the breeze. I left, somewhat perplexed as many of the group immediately threw themselves onto the pavement.

I forgot about them for some time, until I passed that way again several years later, when there was not one but three separate groups each huddled around a model orb. All of the models looked almost exactly like the original, but each was slightly different. I wondered if any of them had managed to trap it and cover it up in their coloured papers and paints, or whether they were simply artist’s impressions.

And then yesterday, when it happened that I came across the groups again, I was amazed to discover that the groups had split and grown again since before, and now there were seven separate factions. Some of the groups all dressed alike now; in one they all wore sashes of tin foil, in another most of them had lanterns balanced on their heads (this seemed to me quite impressive, although I could not work out the reason for it). In another they all hummed softly, and I thought that maybe I recognized the tune from the time I’d seen the orb so long ago. Every now and then one of the groups would build up chants insulting the other groups; I saw a lantern thrown and smashed and a crate of slightly soggy cabbages was distributed with some energy.

And then I saw it. There was the glowing orb again in the street, spectacular and iridescent, slow moving and graceful. I knew they would all be delighted.

‘Look – there it is!’ I shouted, at the top of my voice, pointing into the sky.

And at that moment pandemonium broke loose. All of the groups snapped at once from their positions and hurled vegetables and chicken wire balls and shoes at me and shouted that I was mad or lying or both.

Somewhat terrified and quite astonished I fled at once, and somehow or another made it to the centre of town unscathed.

They were still there when I came back, back in their normal positions, although I myself took the precaution of cunningly disguising myself in a sheet.