Molly Moon's Hypnotic Adventure

Chapter One
The old temple priest stooped and slowly filled the metal lily-pad dishes with milk. As he did, sacred rats came scurrying form the shadows to drink. They were, he believed, reborn people. He chuckled as they ran over his feet and he dropped a handful of sweetmeats on the floor. He nodded to the statue of the many-armed god before him, touched the purple mark on his forehead, then crouched down on hi crooked heels.
He thought how pretty the big, flat dishes looked - each was a white moon with twenty dark grey rats around it, sipping at the milk. The rats looked like furry petals, their pink tails flitting about like fronds in the wind.
He glanced through the temple's pillars to the sunny street outside. Three pony dealers were quarrelling over some money and, nearby, children were chattering noisily as they watched some piglets snuffling in the gutter. Women in saris stood gossiping as they drew water from a stone well, and nearby a camel groaned as it was loaded. A beggar sat cross-legged playing a flute through his nose. A holy cow whisked flies with it's tail and surveyed the scene.