Murmur | true radiance
Along the stones they swept, closing doors and opening windows, taking with them all that was untethered from the earth
At first, there were only the hollowed murmur of wind against the walls. Slow and monotone and droning, not a single note, but a deep choral whisper that rose through the stones of every wall in every house of this street and that street. Weaving, unfastening all the leaves from the rows of elm trees in a burst of unchecked spirit as gales collided, and became one. Along the stones they swept, closing doors and opening windows, taking with them all that was untethered from the earth: feathers and petals and bits of ribbon — until they blew by the starlings’ nests.
One moment they were peeking from within their warm shelters, give another and the grey film had lifted from their black eyes, and their little bodies were soaked with morning air. Inquisitive, perched between the buttresses and amid the bare branches, hundreds of dark gleaming pearls, watching. Their polite chattering and whistling was almost fully overridden by the wuther of the wind, but they chattered regardless. At last, a youngling, feeling rather left out of all this clamour, hopped down from his perch.
He drew out his feathers, he steadied his wings, and was lifted in an instant by the updraft. He called out but they were too far below — suspended in flight: a momentary position frozen against the grey canvas of a dawning sky. And then the updraft died. He was seized by the heavens. He tucked his wings and hurtled toward the ground.
Almost on an invisible cue, the rest of the starlings swooped in by the dozens and dozens and dozens — the beating of feathers and warble of larynx battering against the whistle of the gale. Up! Over the rooftops and the shimmering light, where sleepy candles were propped up against windowsills. Up! Over the heads of the quakers and the choirboys — how piteous are earthbound creatures. Up! Spiralling and climbing that pinnacle of the chapel, past the highest gargoyle and the brass weathercock. Up until everything became specks which dilation and retraction.
By the time the common folk put on their mittens to brave the chill, the flock had already gone.
