Chapter 3

now you see me now you don't peek-a-boo, walking between our feet, Stephen King had it right, the hounds of hell, the messengers of our fate aren't the dogs but the sparrows, why, dig it, when you walk down a street, at least in the town near where I live, so many people, traffic jam, elbow to elbow, eyes straight ahead, talk talk talk, the sound can be deafening, do any of them... hear? There is a background of sound, a stratosphere, inner sphere, starts at our feet, in-between the toes, in the dust mostly the dust, dig it? there are birds there, sparrows, wrens sometimes, but mostly those enduring birds, so small, and the females so... brown, that they disappear against a tan sidewalk, or in the side of a building, at the local post office, the words POST OFFICE, talk is cheap show your money where your mouth is, backup, which is mullah, eggs, nests, a veritable city of sparrows behind those words, and you can see the staggering grass, sticks, mud protruding, wonder if the postal folks just ... gave ... up... sparrows endure, and the sound of their song is ... comforting, walking down that street again though, businesses, people so involved in what they think, a house inside the mind, the door lock the shutters closed, and the ears bolted, blind and deaf, don't see the sparrows walking, and don't hear them, I look for birds, and I listen for the sounds, startled stimuli, shock to the senses, to realize the wall is SINGING, and that there are birds IN THE CRACKS, or up in the drainage pipes, I've even seen them nesting in the rubber encasement of a bundle of telephone wires, look up, at a telephone pole, at the black rubber wrapped around the wires, sometimes there will be dried grass sticking out and a bird flying in, flying out, and the chorus begins... where there is ugliness, beauty, household at one corner, has a feeder, right size for wrens and sparrows they know it, magnet, that house, sometimes when I walk by there are HUNDREDS of birds in that bush, they are THAT SMALL, it is almost like the bush vibrates....

Symbolism of the small brown birds, sparrows, wrens - the feudal class, the peasants, the workers.... the framework of society, the structure... the sparrows often live inside our walls... if they leave will the walls fall down, a society doesn't survive without ... work.

Alternatively, is it what Stephen King says - they are the guardians at the gate of death? Respect them little fellows... there are ... more of them there are of us, sometimes it seems like that...

Their voices are ... everywhere...