Arpith Siromoney 💬

Birds Through the Window

One morning, over breakfast, I spotted a crow dressed in many shades of grey through the window. He was surrounded by the tiny white flowers and the grey-green leaves of the tree, and below his wreath you could see the branch, not quite brown, not quite grey, almost mirroring his angular pose, almost rivaling his sharp features. It was one of those things I wished I could paint.

It was not long after that I noticed the kites for the first time, their shrill call rising swiftly over the sounds of the traffic and the crowd of flutters the pigeons made as they raced to and fro, a thick cloud of loud wings. One of the pigeons had died, strangled on a stray kite thread that was caught in the coconut tree outside my room, and the sky gave it a magnificent send-off, purple and gold and full of emotion.

The next few days were heavy with thought; with this pigeon suspended between earth and sky, hanging beyond reach of my window, a stark witness to all the world about it. And then one day it was gone, as abruptly as it had appeared, and the knowing call of the owls in the night was reassuring once more.