Timestamp 1
The Wings of Spring
William Dyal
(2370 words)
[T & C are walking home from work together on a Friday afternoon in March to their suburban house where they are both roommates and tenants]
‘Isn’t Spring beautiful, T?’ C continued ‘It’s when the sleeping awake, when the air thickens, when the shades become colours again, when the trees begin budding and at long last the flowers start blooming...’
‘You could say that’ I cut him off.
I was just too busy thinking about next week’s work schedule to get caught up in C’s casual meanderings or the view around me. C knows this is the way I am. He knows I don’t mean any hard feelings.
It’s just that the work we do in the office is important to me, so I always try making more time for it as the workday is never enough.
C took back his gaze.
We continued walking down the path that eventually led us to our neighbourhood street, Hope Blvd. We hadn’t said anything since our last exchange but usually on these treks we do talk more. I could see C admiring the sight of the tangerine sunlight glimmering through the pink cherry blossom trees, and at the winding brook below them harvesting their glinted light.
I was just glad we were almost home.
A couple houses prior C broke the silence; ‘Do you hear that?’
‘Hear what?’ I replied.
‘…the songbirds have returned’ C resumed.
I felt bad for shunning C the last time- he is my only friend after all, so I gave him my time, ‘I do hear something, but it’s quite quiet.’
‘Listen closer’ C inquired.
So, I did, for a few seconds.
‘Isn’t it beautiful?’ C interposed.
I looked at C and nodded.
Perhaps I should’ve been more expressive to C, as the sweetly singing songbirds certainly were pleasant; a nice refreshment from thinking about work, but I was too stuck inside my head to say anything.
When we got home we both did our own thing and then tucked in early from an exhausting day at work.
That Friday evening passed quickly. So did the whole Friday thinking back to it.
So did the following Saturday. Nothing noteworthy.
Contrariwise, on Sunday morning while I was making breakfast for C and me, from the corner of my eye I saw a gorgeous rose-breasted grosbeak perched on a tree branch in our neighbour’s backyard.
Needless to say, we ended up eating burnt toast.
Later that same day as I was closing my blinds before going to bed, I saw several grosbeaks of many colours, and other songbirds floundering about in the blood-pink evening dusk. Distantly, and from my bedroom, I could faintly hear them all singing sweet lullabies in our neighbours’ yards. I was mesmerized by what I was hearing. It almost sounded like how I’d imagine an orchestral conglomeration of flutes of all kinds. In fact, it was the first time before going to sleep on a Sunday that I wanted to think about anything other than work.
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