nature | Janey L Foster

The radiator warmed the back of her thighs as the winter afternoon crept towards night. She waited for the tightness to ease out, for her muscles to relax. It had been such a bright day but she needed rain.

She wanted that cold, end-of-year rain to bounce off the supermarket car park tarmac, for the lights to fracture and sparkle like they did, for car tail-lights to be the only colour as she walked, as she headed to the pharmacy.

…

Her red fleece top kept out the cold but not the rain and of course she didn’t care. Rushing around the aisles afterwards, her right pocket stuffed, she patted it to keep it safe. She rustled, she became oblivious to rain, such that it became her well loved trademark.

And later, a little later, back home, she was the one who fractured and sparkled. She sat on the sofa and in the soft glow of the TV babble she felt like she lit up the room.

…

She left the heat of the radiator and peeped outside to the blackness. Make it rain, she whispered to her window, to her street. Make it rain. Please.

And it became a birdsong kind of day. It opened and they woke to tiny throats vibrating, chirping louder than they’d heard before. And there it was, the sun beating brighter and sparrows hopped.

They paused on car roofs and looked around, then darted zig zags in the air and found a branch. Branches that quivered and they waited for the sounds.

But the sounds didn’t come. The rush grumble roar of wheels on road didn’t happen and blackbirds watched, they cocked their heads on one side and scoured the ground for food.

They found seeds in the un trampled grass and filled their bellies in the way they used to do before the people came, in the sweet silence before the muck and dust, and they sang out. Hard tallons scratted up and down the rooves, leaves stretched out, wet and new and morning opened.

The birds reclaimed the town, they darted, scattered in the photons, unhindered, untethered, their voices spiralled up in silent air.

There were faces at the grime stained windows but the birds still flew.