At first the man scarcely noticed, felt the sound more than he heard it and the sound was no interruption, only one more layering of all the world around. It was a sound borne of silence, come from quiet and knowing quiet’s ways. A sound that wound itself in slow, no startling, no trespass to this moment, this long, lingered moment’s stretch.
A bird.
A bird, he thought, and he wasn’t alone, now not only the man and the grass but the man and the grass and this new, subtle bird.
The bird was dust and a flash of radiance. Ash blown over ember, a glowing heart within. A bird, but no bird that this man had seen, no fluttered browns no silver no jay blue or bright, bright red. Just quiet pulsing not-orange not-red glimpsed beneath the shuffle of its heavy gray. Blink away, and you might miss it. Stare too close, and you won’t see. Little ash bird that knows more than it utters.
Tilt of a small ashy head. The briefest flutter of wingtips.
“Have you been watching me,” the man asked, not minding, no not minding because if the bird had been watching, it was the most agreeable kind of watch, not intrusive not invasive not disrupting, not one bit.
no subject
Well.
For you, I guess I'll endure it.
[ ... ... ]
At first the man scarcely noticed, felt the sound more than he heard it and the sound was no interruption, only one more layering of all the world around. It was a sound borne of silence, come from quiet and knowing quiet’s ways. A sound that wound itself in slow, no startling, no trespass to this moment, this long, lingered moment’s stretch.
A bird.
A bird, he thought, and he wasn’t alone, now not only the man and the grass but the man and the grass and this new, subtle bird.
The bird was dust and a flash of radiance. Ash blown over ember, a glowing heart within. A bird, but no bird that this man had seen, no fluttered browns no silver no jay blue or bright, bright red. Just quiet pulsing not-orange not-red glimpsed beneath the shuffle of its heavy gray. Blink away, and you might miss it. Stare too close, and you won’t see. Little ash bird that knows more than it utters.
Tilt of a small ashy head. The briefest flutter of wingtips.
“Have you been watching me,” the man asked, not minding, no not minding because if the bird had been watching, it was the most agreeable kind of watch, not intrusive not invasive not disrupting, not one bit.