i was on my way to work the other day as my car approached the bridge at the bottom of the hill where the girl died when her car ran off the road into the river during a terrible thunderstorm the day after i got my driver’s license on friday the thirteenth, five or six years ago. up ahead i saw a throng of black birds. some were on the right, some on the left. others were camping in the road, doing who knows what. i honked so as to spare the birds their lives, but really i just wanted to see them fly. and fly they did. one by one, and all within a moment or two, the birds all sprung into flight. there were so many birds that they formed a canopy of shade over the road, and the movement of the little shadows on the pavement reminded me of what it looks like when you see the silhouette of water streaming down glass, like on your windshield in a drive-thru car wash or on your windows when it is raining hard outside, and a little bit of sun is shining through. i leaned forward in my seat and slowed down to enjoy the moment for all it was worth.

i am really bad at guessing numbers, so i really have no idea how many birds there were. it could have been thousands, or maybe a million or two. but i think that if a national geographic photographer happened to be on assignment on walnut run road, covering black bird migration, my car and a whole slew of those fluttering creatures would end up on the cover one of these months, and people the world over would marvel and turn to each other and say things about wishing they lived in strasburg so they could witness such things.