Friends in the Sky

I had a high fever, a nasty cough, and the week had gone totally awry for several different reasons - you know, one of those periods of time that for some reason is loaded with ridiculously bad karma? I went out on the terrace and looked out onto the street. I missed Colombo a lot. Sometimes you miss something just because you're not there and you're here instead. I missed good company more than anything.

And then I saw them. They all appeared out of the blue. A few hours before sunset.

Eagles. 

It was almost as though someone had summoned them, because they seemed to have just sprouted out into my vision from behind the tall fir trees. I lay down on a concrete bench with my head propped up on my palms and started counting them. Their tails reminded me of fish tails, and none of them made a sound. They were only about thirty feet above me. 

These eagles didn't believe in the class divides of the sky and flew only a few feet above the crows and the sparrows. They didn't soar each alone, like you would imagine the haughty mighty eagle to do, but they seemed to move together in a huge flock. Even as a flock they didn't move in a straight line, they danced around each other in circular motion while slowly gliding with the breeze in one direction. There's some kind of pattern in the eagle-dance that I still haven't figured out. I might look away for one minute and look back and they'll suddenly have disappeared.

All 62 of them.