I was startled by the sound when i first heard it, something new, an addition to this place where i dwell now, far from my home and then, later, the next day perhaps i was startled once more and jerked my head trying to find its source, wondering what it was as i slowly began to feel that i had heard it before, a faint memory rising to the surface, as if i had heard it once, out in the wild, a long time ago. what did it mean, this ghostly noise, was it the same then as now? i did not recall, and then i forgot, my mind coming back to the present until i kept hearing it again, some time later. it krept among the sounds i knew so well, the sounds i was accustomed with: the noises of my peers, their chittering and chanting, the flapping of their wings, the sound of them gliding through the air. and then suddenly there’s that sound again, i turn my head whenever i hear it, but yet i can never make out the source. perhaps the sounds are only in my head, a memory of days in the wild, a trick of the mind, or my mind failing as i’m growing older, as every moment moves me further from the memory of that sound. there it is again. after a while the sound became ominous and i began to cower whenever i heard it and so did some of the others, but not all of them, only us older ones, not the younger ones. i think it was the younger ones at least.
