Max the Sheep

In a sun-drenched pool of light, breaking through the leafy canopy of a Uyghur courtyard, on a late spring morning, sat Max the Sheep. Now Max was no ordinary, everyday kind of sheep, he was a fat-tailed sheep, and he was THE proverbial black sheep. Max liked sitting in the sun at this time of year, sitting and ruminating over the morning's breakfast. Just then something changed, a shift seemed to ripple through the ground, from the direction of Luolan. It seemed to Max that the 'Smile of the Earth' was beginning to frown.