A Fictional Snippet

As I opened the door a few mountain jays flew in, at least three before I closed it. I never discovered the actual name for these birds, but they were my favorites.

The first I’d seen them was a summer I worked on a farm in the Swiss alps, and the locals called them mountain jays. Their blue bodies darkened into jet black spanning from their necks to the tip of the spiked tuffs atop their heads. They looked a bit different in Colorado, but the colors were the same.

“How weird and beautiful.” I said as I turned from the door toward the black-headed blue birds gliding between the oak beams in the ceiling. “They just wanted to come inside?”

“Saul, look outside.” Imani said seriously.

I went to the window this time and peered through the glass. There were hundreds of mountain jays crowding everything, the trees, the telephone poles, the cars, and even the shoulders and heads of people. Some middle

schoolers were recording their friend balancing on one foot with extended arms as the blue birds flocked for a place to sit. He yelped, and his friends toppled with laughter as several birds relieved themselves simultaneously.