Bird's Eye View

I saw a flock of birds.

Now, I can see them wherever I like; like now, lying on this greyish-green, centuries-old Spanish sand in San Jose, which I've built my home on over the days. The shore can be warm and kind. Or harshly hot, its powders invading crevices (I find it between teeth, clinging to sweat and trapped under nails).

The bay is small, embraced by a yellow, dappled cliff-face and hidden in a dry, olive-coloured landscape filled with Dr. Seuss trees. At least that's what I see - but really, this feels placeless. It isn't a beach (there are no ice-cream stalls or body boarders), it's everywhere: the wild island in my book; paradise, with Earth's trailblazers; a post-apocalypse world – and nowhere. It's timeless, too. Only a swimsuit here and there as a giveaway. Otherwise, there's nothing. Nothing on the body of sand, nothing in the body of water, nothing on the bodies of the humans. Or perhaps everything, that nature intended.

It is here where I conjure the birds from yesterday, illustrating this perfectly sparse coastline in my mind. Flocks – of parakeets, peacocks and pigeons, pigeons, pigeons – have flown or fluttered through my field of vision throughout my life of course, but these extraordinary bids halted me. As they danced by I stood still, wondering if I could control them with my eyes. But they preferred to be fleeting beauties, flashing their colours on white bodies around their blue canvas. Peach melba, fresh-mint, tangerine, raspberry sorbet.

I had seen them by the port, but today I imagined their show here: everywhere, nowhere. Lemon and lime, blue lagoon, banana split, blurring by every ten seconds, as I stand - frozen – under the sweltering sky, half-inventing their form through their speed. Isn't this what we travel for? The exotic, that which is Other. For surely only that can pause us in our frantic, modern tracks, make us stop and reflect, bring us back to ourselves. Make us see, instead of look; feel, instead of clock. I believed the birds would change my life. I wanted everyone to see them. How could anyone overlook, neglect, abuse, having seen this?

A bird-like breeze awoke my consciousness from a hot, sandy slumber. A pigeon by my hand. Cleaner than the London variety and brightly flecked as if with watercolours, but certainly a pigeon. A pigeon painted by a person, I later discovered. As it flew off, anywhere, I pictured the illusory flock in London and asked myself what difference it might make there.