Murmurations
I went down to the front to watch the sunset. After the other worldly nature of yesterday’s sunset where the sun so vulnerably dim and so blood-red it could be looked at directly with no protest from the eyes, retreated from underneath it’s cloudy covers to sit on the edge of the sea for a few minutes before submitting slowly to the darkening waters. Today demonstrated a beautiful, bright and wholly orthodox picture. The cloudless skies shifting from blue to green to metallic yellows and oranges. Colourful but nothing to blog home about. My eyes averted from the solar theatre to a small group of people stripping on the jetty before diving vocally into the silvery March sea. After their shivering heads bobbed away from view I noticed the gathering crew of starlings above the pier. This undulating wave of busy wings and tiny hearts kept expanding as neighbouring squadrons were drawn to the mass like iron filings to a magnet. More and more gangs arrived from over the rooftops and behind the castle and towards Constitution Hill. As the thousands swooped and flickered like a field of grass in the breeze and the sky darkened the mass seemed to take on different shapes. At once it was a heart then a ribbon then a kite. I ceased to see it as group of tiny birds, it was now a feathered jellyfish and the whole sky was it’s ocean. I was hypnotised by this powerful display, it’s patterns, it’s apparent order, it’s occasional chaos. Another sizeable flock appeared from behind the sea-facing roofs and chimneys, rising and billowing like smoke from an ancient devastating city fire. A hundred at a time they peeled off this biblical swarm and targeted the underside of the pier. I thought briefly of ravens perched gluttonously on the ribs of some poor skeleton.
I was shaking that image from my mind when,”Murmurations”.
Excuse me. I turned to a big faced middle aged man with a mouth like a letterbox. “Murmurations, that’s what a flock of starlings is called”. My hypnotism had been broken. I told him I didn’t know that. He proceeded to barge past the doormen of my solitude and told me some story of dead starlings in a woman’s back garden. I interjected at his designated pauses to offer my one word responses. I attempted to tug myself from this unwanted new friend. I only half succeeded and spent the next few minutes with my feet in a strange position like a disturbed manniquin. The man kept talking to me about birds. He finished, had he exhausted his dialogue. If he left now it would only be a slightly odd exchange of words. Promenade pleasantries only stretched a little too far. I took a step, my shin was starting to smart from the unbalanced weight on my twisted leg. I was going to get away but he reeled me back in by taking out the contents of his little carrier bag. Had he had that bag all along? I wondered what other props he may produce in his attempt at forging a friendship. By this time the sky was showing colours familiar to the screaming figure in front of Edvard Munch’s landscape. I started to understand how that iconic face could distort itself into such anguish. I tried to recall if there had there been another figure in that famous painting? Perhaps a heavy man with wide mouth and jutting teeth carrying a Waterstone’s bag.
I really didn’t want to get into a conversation about steampunk and urban fantasy novels. But I got the feeling that this new friendship wasn’t about what I wanted. After one too many “yes”, “hmmm”, “really?” and “ahhh’s”, I managed to prise myself between the bars of this conversation and wishing him good evening from over my shoulder I strode purposefully away from the sea and found myself in the Spar. I felt I had earned a treat and with the chocolate abstention still in place bought a big packet of fig rolls. Now I’m safely home and interrogating these fig rolls, asking them “why me?”. Why do the oddballs pick me? Hopefully it’s simply because I happened to be standing on my own. Maybe I’m a soft choice and someone else further down the sea front had offered a swift “do one pal”. But part of me can’t help wondering whether they see themselves in me. Am I a kindred spirit? Is it my destiny to one day force conversation on unsuspecting folk, am I to be a boorish verbal rapist? The fig rolls are offering no answer. I knew I should have bought ginger nuts. They’d have told me to chin the fucker.
