Sarah
and the Memorial to Heroes of Self Sacrifice
Hello. This post is about Death & Birds.
While on a train into London this week, I took out my noise cancelling ear buds in an effort to acclimate myself to the barrage of sound that the city brings. I’m sensitive to noise. It has a habit of sending my nervous system into overdrive and joyously the vineyard that sits some 500 yards from where we live has decided to employ a ‘Bird scarer’—a machine that lets off what sounds like a nearby shotgun blast, every thirty minutes. This means that, while at home, alongside a skeleton-jarring jolt of adrenaline flooding my body, I have to allow the dark and unstoppable fantasy of going to the vineyard with a sledgehammer and beating the Bird-scarer into a small and unrecognisable pulp play out in my minds eye—every thirty minutes.
So, when my Tuesday unexpectedly opened up, I hotfooted it to the train station to take myself into the city and, as I was saying, I took out my ear buds en route. The transition from lush countryside into the dull uniformity of the cityscape is a harsh one, so the determined little plants and flowers that grow, against all odds, out of railways tracks and brick walls are a welcome softening.