Day 541

So where were you when the birds died?
Do you even remember or where you too young?

I was in a waiting room that day.
Nobody likes waiting rooms.
I remember being surrounded by dozens of miserable faces, nervous faces.
They were all somewhat weary and mostly elderly.

I just went for a yearly checkup, only to find every doctor was running late.
Spent most of the time staring up through the domed glass skylight.
Never seen another surgery with anything similar to it - but then again it it was a big city place.
I remember seeing more birds than usual flying about.

Just before It happened I saw the largest murmuration of starlings.
It's unusual to see one in a city, starlings are countryside birds but there must have been thousands.
They flew round and round in an almost tornado-like formation, hovering over the building.
More and more birds joined them, all different kinds.

And then came the drop.
All of them at once just stopped, stone dead and piling up in a circle around the surgery.
Some landed on the skylight, crashing through and causing absolute chaos.
While everyone panicked I sat,mind numb and body number.

A magpie landed on my lap - barely past fledging, judging by its fuzzy back feathers.
It's eyes seemed to have been torn right out.
The news reports never mentioned that, said all the other birds were in perfect health.
There was no reason for any of them to have died at all.

I've kept the magpie though I'm not sure why.
A friend preserved it in a jar for me.
It flaps sometimes, slow and deliberate when I look at it.
The birds aren't dead, not really... they aren't birds anymore though.