Pause

I opened the window. It had been thoroughly raining and the air was perpetually cold with the damp of petrichor.

A tabby cat, inching its way along the thin branch of a tree, languidly, awkwardly. Myself, poised at the window, pondering whether I could startle it, make it tumble and fall.

Onto the damp lawn below.

The cat is after a bird. A little robin - sensing its predation, hops nimbly, fleetingly to an upper branch, well beyond reach of the perched pussykin's paws.

Stare I up at the gloom-faced billowing clouds, confident with the endeavour to dream that I too, were flying high in the sky as such aircraft passing in the heavens do. To spread one's wings and spring aloof into the weather-beaten sky is to live like a bird, free from the ties, demands and from the prison of human life. The birds fly where they please and are, like humble children, clothed and fed by their loving creator. Such, no doubt is the true force behind humanity's lament at their inability to naturally fly.