Lights along the recreation ground

An original literary non-fiction-style account of a neighbourhood lantern walk on an autumn evening.

By six o’clock, the recreation ground had filled with things which did not look ready for a procession. A paper moon lay sideways on a bench. Three children were arguing about which end of a long green creature should go first. Beside the gate, a man held a lantern shaped like a house, its roof trembling each time he answered a question.

The lights were small battery lamps, checked at a folding table before being placed inside the paper shapes. One refused to shine. A woman tried it, put it aside and took another from a box. The house became yellow at its windows. The moon recovered a pale roundness which had been difficult to see against the bench.

When the walk began, nobody moved at quite the same speed. The green creature stretched between its bearers, then sagged as they waited for a family with a pushchair. Someone called for a slower pace. From the far side of the grass, the lanterns looked briefly like an orderly string of lights. Among them, there were dropped gloves, questions about supper and a persistent argument about whether a dragon could have ears.

At the turn beside the tennis courts, the paper house lost a corner of its roof. Its bearer caught the loose piece and continued with it tucked under one arm. Two children lifted their lights to inspect the damage. Then the procession moved on, the house shining through its windows with one dark opening at the top.

After the final circuit, the folding table became a place for returning lamps. The shapes darkened one by one. The moon lay sideways on the bench again, now beside a pair of gloves. Across the ground, the green creature was being carried towards a car in three carefully separated pieces.

How does the writer present the lantern walk as a shared, improvised event?