The world is a dirtier, uglier, grittier altogether more sinister place in the wee small hours of the morning.  In my last post I commented that the Jemma El Fna, otherwise known as ‘Place of the Dead’, was quite definitely not a place of the dead – ‘there is nowhere livelier’.  Well – at night it lives up to it’s name.  

There was no death there, not visible anyway – but I could feel it. 

It lingered in the shadows.  

It watched.

Had I jumped back to the time when this square was used for public executions? (Once the most dreaded place in the whole of Africa.)

I roamed back and forth across the square, quite unsettled.  A scooter zipping across the cobbles brought me back to the present.  

The mess from the previous night’s ‘carnival’ blankets the ground….. but it is soon taken away.  With help from the street dogs and cats and no doubt a few rats.

By 5:30 it is no longer a ghoulishly ghastly place.  It is resembling it’s modern day self.  Stalls are starting to get ready for the day, people make their way to work or home perhaps.

There is a hint of a rush.  A whisper of the madness to come.  A taxi drives by.  A horse whinnies.  A gentle flutter of leaves in the mind. 

A carriage driver sleeps in his carriage while doves keep watch.  The call to prayer sounds.  Across the Place, the great place of the dead, life stirs.