We had no idea what was going to happen. We’d only entered the temple at this late hour to use the facilities. There was a great crush of people trying to get in, deferring only slightly to the greater crush of people who were trying to get out. Bottle-necked in the arched entrance, there was, for a brief moment, a sense of danger, a concern that things might turn suddenly ugly, the ship’s hull turning too far on its axis and rolling past the point of no return.
We made it through into the main hall, stairs leading through another door up into the room which held the main altar table and, in front of it, the palanquin sitting ready to embark on its journey. We needed to be the other side of the room, to squeeze beween the table and palanquin, competing with elbows and bodies pushing, pushing, squeezing through gaining and holding ground waiting for the next slither of space to claim edging forward and then everything froze. Just like that. The whole crowd seemed to understand, everyone but us outsiders. There was no getting through now, there was no abandoning the idea. There was no movement to be had at all.
Suddenly, movement. The crowd opened up, and I realised the palanquin was moving forward, expanding as it did the space in which we stood, but introducing at the same time a new dynamic of near hysteria in the crowd. “It’s happening!”, I shouted to my brother, turning around. The excitement I felt lay in the fact that I knew something was going down, but I had no idea what that would be. I knew the crowd would move as they should, and I was to follow them, unquestioning but absolutely engaged. A fight broke out: tensions were running high. Everyone…no, not everyone, just a few devout followers…wanted to be there to touch the palanquin, to give it its first push on its journey.
We got into position behind it.
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