Wind as a Broom
By KJ Hays
A bird flew overhead as a man contemplated the next moment in his life and how it should be. The bird interrupted
him for it reminded him of himself. It was a raven trying to get somewhere and it was convinced of the strength of its
wings. It was beating its limbs against the invisible gusts in the air that sent her great body spiraling like a dancer
that had renounced balance. Choice was no longer a part of its life for as long as it was in the wind, and this thought
troubled the man in the part of his mind where he keeps the dark things that all men think about but only let
themselves think about at night when they cannot go to sleep, for it is sleep that affords one escape. The bird had
no options and it could not ask for other birds for help in its flight pattern for birds lack fingers for joining together
and all must fly solo. It did not call out. There was no confusion in its black eyes that held more secrets than the
parts of graves where plants do not grow for there are places where not even seeds can be blown by even the most
adamant storms. The blackbird knew that it was going to have to wait for the wind to die down, if it was ever going to
die down at all. It flailed its wings against the gales and blustery shots of air until they seemed to be blankets that the
bird was thrashing and twirling around its body like a virtuoso flamenco dancer. Despite the wildness of the
contortions there was no element of surprise about the bird's movements as though it was rehearsing the entire
activity for a later date yet to be determined. And if there was not a date in the future, the bird cared not at all for
time, and it only existed in the eyes of the man who had chosen to watch it to forget the unseen wires and bells
fastened above his head as he tried to crawl through the grasses that time ignored in his life, the decisions that he
had to make, but for which there was no proper answer. Such is the way of the world. The only idea he gained from
the experience and perhaps the sole idea that was important to him was that he had come to admire the bird shortly
after he began watching it and this was the fact he chose to accept for himself rather than look at the bird's possible
relevance to his own life for he had no choice but to look at that bird at that moment in his life because moments are
like wings once beaten; they cannot but unfurl and unfold like flight feathers that most follow suit once the wing
bends and the claws tuck in. For he believed the lie that man can choose how his life unfolds and this allowed him
the small freedoms that were actually determining his existence whether, like the bird's relevance to his life, he
decided to acknowledge it or not. The bird created an awful rendering of its own peace in the sky by ignoring its own
vulnerability and letting the fates in the air toss its body through the sky. The man knew that though the bird's
feathers flew there was beauty in its soundless struggle against a natural force that did not know it was there at all. It
was a hard bird. He had made a place in his life for hard birds, the great beauty they churn in the sky with their
wings, and the doomed silence that makes it easier to watch such things. So the bird had been a leaf before his
eyes, and the wind a push broom. Had there been enough birds there might have been a pile of leaves in the sky
amongst the creamy clouds. So.
(My name is K.J. I just finished the crossing by Cormac McCarthy.)
http://illegalfunk.blogspot.com
By KJ Hays
A bird flew overhead as a man contemplated the next moment in his life and how it should be. The bird interrupted
him for it reminded him of himself. It was a raven trying to get somewhere and it was convinced of the strength of its
wings. It was beating its limbs against the invisible gusts in the air that sent her great body spiraling like a dancer
that had renounced balance. Choice was no longer a part of its life for as long as it was in the wind, and this thought
troubled the man in the part of his mind where he keeps the dark things that all men think about but only let
themselves think about at night when they cannot go to sleep, for it is sleep that affords one escape. The bird had
no options and it could not ask for other birds for help in its flight pattern for birds lack fingers for joining together
and all must fly solo. It did not call out. There was no confusion in its black eyes that held more secrets than the
parts of graves where plants do not grow for there are places where not even seeds can be blown by even the most
adamant storms. The blackbird knew that it was going to have to wait for the wind to die down, if it was ever going to
die down at all. It flailed its wings against the gales and blustery shots of air until they seemed to be blankets that the
bird was thrashing and twirling around its body like a virtuoso flamenco dancer. Despite the wildness of the
contortions there was no element of surprise about the bird's movements as though it was rehearsing the entire
activity for a later date yet to be determined. And if there was not a date in the future, the bird cared not at all for
time, and it only existed in the eyes of the man who had chosen to watch it to forget the unseen wires and bells
fastened above his head as he tried to crawl through the grasses that time ignored in his life, the decisions that he
had to make, but for which there was no proper answer. Such is the way of the world. The only idea he gained from
the experience and perhaps the sole idea that was important to him was that he had come to admire the bird shortly
after he began watching it and this was the fact he chose to accept for himself rather than look at the bird's possible
relevance to his own life for he had no choice but to look at that bird at that moment in his life because moments are
like wings once beaten; they cannot but unfurl and unfold like flight feathers that most follow suit once the wing
bends and the claws tuck in. For he believed the lie that man can choose how his life unfolds and this allowed him
the small freedoms that were actually determining his existence whether, like the bird's relevance to his life, he
decided to acknowledge it or not. The bird created an awful rendering of its own peace in the sky by ignoring its own
vulnerability and letting the fates in the air toss its body through the sky. The man knew that though the bird's
feathers flew there was beauty in its soundless struggle against a natural force that did not know it was there at all. It
was a hard bird. He had made a place in his life for hard birds, the great beauty they churn in the sky with their
wings, and the doomed silence that makes it easier to watch such things. So the bird had been a leaf before his
eyes, and the wind a push broom. Had there been enough birds there might have been a pile of leaves in the sky
amongst the creamy clouds. So.
(My name is K.J. I just finished the crossing by Cormac McCarthy.)
http://illegalfunk.blogspot.com
New Hampshire Writers Flash Fiction
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