Strength in Numbers
The first toxic tip. The herd was sick. We take our pleasures in small doses. How to make new friends was the topic of the day; as the old ones subsided into old age, institutions, death, into a passing, a great passing. He couldn't remember the term for the period of history that encompasses one's life, all he knew was that they were all gone, mostly gone, that those great clubs and familiarities had now subsided, and if not all was lost, much was. As rebirth filled the streets around him. As the Australian economy finally had its gestalt moment he had been warning about all along.
As we subsided and died and were reborn, as the falcons hovered over the dog park, in formation now. Unusual to see them in more than ones or twos.
Kestrels, if he got that right, a small falcon, known for its ability to hover.
He had been out on the waters of Lake Illawara, dragon boat training, he had imbibed all the wild pleasures of youth, the drunken soliloquies, all that angst that vanished in a moment of pure joy, the destiny that could not be denied, and which he had worked so hard to destroy, the moment, these moments, and then, lyrical, born aloft, old phrases ringing through the heath, the armoured fountain preening its metallic feathers, the walk, the dawn, the moment we celebrated, the coming together of everything.
While all the old friends mumbled off into their indefinite futures; wandered off into sagging flesh and increasingly dire situations.
Was it true, the vaccine held within itself a component to destroy intimacy, to destroy the bonds between humans. So it would seem.