Bogle

by Paul Murgatroyd

sudden blackness outside the window

standing out on the brown ground

how is it there?

no movement no sound

an alien shape shape gone mad

a disembodied shadow?

a black hole?

a chunk of night somehow there in the daylight?

chainmail and ridges

a gash of sunshine

a ring of sunshine around the brightdark

it moved drooped

a creature

from another world?

from the Valley of Death?

‘Grandad, what’s that weird thing out on the lawn? There.’

‘Bloody hell!’

‘What? Is it dangerous? It is, isn’t it?’

‘No. But it’s very strange… I saw a picture of this once, in an old book, from before The Heat…I thought they were all dead. This is something special, lad, really special.’

‘What is it?’

‘It’s called a turdus merula.’

‘A what?’

‘A turdus merula, a blackbird. It’s beautiful, isn’t it?’