The swan

I almost drowned myself in the bath last night. I fell asleep somewhere between one drip of the tap and the next. I’d been thinking about a documentary I had seen about the Turin Shroud. Winged guardians moved through my dreams.

The shriek of claws and the thud of feathered bones woke me as I took my first mouthful of bath water. The unholy sound of a flute-necked singer, the giant white flapping of wings.

A swan beat against the glass of the window.

I climbed out of the bath choking and spluttering. I wrapped myself in a towel and ran outside. The swan patrolled the lawn, a haughty baroness of damaged pride. I watched as she lifted away again into the sky.

Something came out of me when I coughed up soapy bath water. Something about air and freedom and angels.

This afternoon after work I took the long way home. Stood in the middle of the lane in the warm summer rain. Gust after gust lifting gust. Held my arms out in the wind and shrieked like the swan.