What happened next

Or were they?..............................

Bertha stopped playing her flute, sat down on the kerb, pulled a cornish pasty from her ample cleavage and began to munch. She shook her head slowly and pondered. She didn't think she was an unreasonable person, had dealt with a number situations like the one she found herself in now, but something wasn't right this time. What was she doing wrong? Bertha's eyes focused. She saw two pairs of legs in front of her. She looked up into the faces of Melissa and Cedric. "Can we have a bit?", asked Cedric, pointing at the pasty. Bertha looked down at the ground and raised the hand holding the pasty. Cedric turned to Melissa, "You first" he said with a grim smile. Melissa bit into the golden pastry...

'Wow' she said to Cedric 'not bad!' Bertha chipped in 'Greggs Cornish Pastie' she smiled at Cedric, 'must remember that' Melissa smiled she stepped away so Cedric and Bertha could talk.

the most amazing drivel as usual and gossip about absent friends a schadenfeude festival as

"Thomas the Rhymer" suddenly appeared on the scene, much as "Will" had done earlier. "What is the meaning of this?", asked Bertha. "I have nothing to declare but my genius!" said Tom, and left. Then,

the whole bunch of them started to question how these appearances and exits came about, was an invisible omnipresence interfering in the narrative of their lives? Were they all simply thoughts, things as Prentice Mulford suggested early in the twentieth century in his books Thoughts Are Things?
Suddenly Bertha's dad Gabriel blew his horn, the sky turned black and rain torrential and bloody fell form a lachrymose heaven. All we need now is a blood moon said