Icarus

The scene is an ordinary Tuesday, late morning, under an overcast sky. Like every Tuesday (every day of the week, in fact), the boys are hanging at The Sill, looking cool and collected, with one claw to the wall, the other firmly gripping the street-side rim.

Icarus

"There he comes," says Second-From-The-Right. Late, always late, he thinks. It gets harder every day to save him a spot. Sometimes you can barely move here. Oh, I'd love to take a few steps, but not a chance, not with this other guy facing the wrong way. Ledge is so narrow you can only move forward, and I really don't feel like taking off and circling around just to move my ground joints. "Hey," he shouts in the direction of the newcomer flying by.

First-from-the-Left says nothing to no-one but himself. How many daylights ago was it, he wondered, that the strange blue-gray mouth above last opened? I wish it yawned now and that he'd just... just... fly into it and disappear. Disappear! I bet he wouldn't. I bet we'd hear a rustle of wings and feathers for a while still, short and intermittent at first - surprised - then drawn out and almost continuous - panicked. There'd be a beaking, a chipping, then, coming from behind the closed opening, getting fainter and fainter until it was spaced out so unevenly that it resembled raindrops when they fall from leaves long after it had stopped to rain. No one would know, but me. Sometimes - not all the time - I have such thoughts...

"He got style," says Second-from-the-Left to no-one in particular. "Time to make another mark for him on the scoreboard to memorialize yet another impressive fly-by. I feel so inspired I am just about ready to drop some white-hot excitement on his permanent record! Hahr, hahr."

First-from-the-Right was almost napping when the arrival startled him. It wasn't sudden; just a sharp, swishing sound as wings cut the air to buck momentum. "Wha...? Oh. Didn't have to wake me up for that," he whines.

There they are, moped Newcomer. Always judging, judging, watching and judging. It's my fault for getting here late, as always, when they're already about. If only I could just get it together and keep it together long enough to arrive early at least once so I'd be first, here, to watch and judge. Me. But I'll show them. Not today, today is too overcast and gray and I cannot find the sun to set my aim. But soon. I'll give them a show to remember. I'll fly higher than they ever dared, so high they'll have to respect it after, when I come down. I want it so bad I can taste it. Oh, I would pay any price. Not today, but soon.