-Arrival Of The Birds-

    I will always remember what met us at the bluff’s peak. Even to this day, I sometimes doubt whether it happened at all: such an instance of complete and utter beauty is a thing that comes rarely, if at all. There is a lightness of the soul, a shortness of breath and such a rush of life that you find yourself wondering if this is what heaven really is: not a place at all—rather, a state of being, a moment in time when there is only the knowledge that the world is wonderful and that everything will be all right. And within that newborn dawn, this moment revealed itself to us.

    We met heaven with arms wide open.

    Upon reaching the crest of the hill, our sudden movement startled a flock of swallows while they foraged in the grassland. One second we were surrounded by an ordinary field, and in the next, the air was filled with seraphs rising into the sky. This departure of birds caused even more of them to erupt from the foliage around us: surging, crying and wheeling. The flock poured upward, creating a whole far more magnificent than its parts, and then, with a sudden turn, they swayed round and burst through us. As feathers brushed upon our cheeks, he and I held fast and beheld our miracle. The golden air and the beating of wings and the pulsating continuum of beauty and freedom consumed us. We were illuminated, we were alive, and Benjamin took me into his arms and lifted me up into the air. As I rose, I suddenly threw back my head and cried out, and my voice reverberated out over the meadow. Carried within this sound was one single note that I will never be able to match again. It was the ataraxic manifestation of rapture, and once made, such a sound can never be created again.

    As the wind whipped through my nightgown, making the pale fabric flutter and my hair billow out behind me, I yelled once more and Benjamin joined me. His face was turned to the sky, the breeze catching in his hair and sending it about his brows in waves. In his joy, he was radiant. But when he finally set me down, I saw that his eyes were glistening with tears, though his mouth was pulled into a smile.

    “Tell me why you’re crying, Benjamin,” I entreated, to which he shook his head and spoke naught for a moment.

    “I don’t really know…” The tears spilled over and ran down his cheeks. He shook his head once more and wiped his eyes. “It’s going to sound mad, but I haven’t ever felt like this before! I’m afraid that I’ll never be this happy again.” He then let out a laugh and took me into his arms once more. “Thank you, Sara.”

    We pulled away, and I laughed, too. “Thank me? For what?”

    He didn’t reply: he only looked at me. The expression upon his face really was of a singular kind—a reticent billet doux of the eyes, an unwritten love letter that said everything spoken words could not. It was a secret escaped from parted lips and the bashful surprise of loving for the first time. It was his—it was mine—it was ours.

---

art, writing, characters (c) me