Aztec Procession

I am sitting outside my favourite bar, drinking coffee and smoking quietly. In the distance, through the heat and softly settling dust of siesta-time, I hear a faint clattering and chanting. I turn towards the sound, straining my ears. After several minutes have brought the noise closer, I realise that it is the music-of a grand religious procession of some kind. My suspicions are confirmed when a colourful scene bursts into the stillness of the square. In the centre of a mass of   Aztecs are a royal couple, hoisted up on an elaborate double throne. The Aztecs are all expressionless, their eyes blank and dead as they chant and sing. I glance nervously around, but I am the only | person in the square. The bar appears long-closed, and my coffee is cold. As the Aztecs turn to stare vacantly at me, I feel certain that I should be  elsewhere. I unfold from my chair and bolt along a narrow alleyway between tall buildings, the washing lines flapping high above my head as the baleful roar of the Aztecs echoes from the square. I run this way and that, my heart pounding and my face streaming with sweat. I am lost, and in a blindly unreasoning panic.