Scene From Delhi - 5

At five, the bats still feast freely in the black blue night. They hunt in impossibly complex aerial maneuvers, swooping in at high speed just above the dreaded light of orange yellow streetlights to eradicate flies and mosquitoes who slam repeatedly into the faux suns like junkies needing their electromagnetic hit. At five fifteen, there is a precise and orderly changing of the aerial guard, as navy replaces black as the dominant hue on God's arcing palette and the bats disappear. Huge air wings of eagles taxi and take off from the park down the street and fly northeast over our house still in formation, their huge wingspans stark against the lightening sky. Once out over the highway, they break formation and go off to pursue solo bombing runs on rodents, small birds and, horrifyingly, puppies around the city. At six, the sun is risen over the east and the nuisance brigade fully alights. Pigeons disorganizedly flop around the skies, an embarassment to the grace of their hunter cousins. In huge numbers they testify to their insanity: trying the same thing over and over again and expecting a different response. They squabble over non-existent food (predictably just outside on my bedroom balcony). They sit, purposeless, for minutes at a time, until some whim of wind or humming low-level instinct move them to move. By six thirty, the city is full alive and aloud. The last to join the sky revel in the ignorance of their own inferiority for the remainder of the day.