Seen on the Road

I pulled up at a stop light behind an open truck which was piled high with coconuts in their brown fibrous outer husks. Three men perched on the coconuts, half crouching, half lying down, dressed only in tucked-up lungis. They were dark-skinned, almost black against the light brown coconuts, and their features were rough. They looked as if they came from the deepest countryside, and were entering the city for the first time. They looked around continuously.

A shower of tiny green leaves fell on my windshield, mixed with a flock of birds high above, both seeming the same size, and falling in the same arc.