On Campus
By Ben Osborn
It had been raining that day, and if I remember this right, the paving stones beneath my feet where freckled. I mean they looked like they were freckles. I mean it was like splash marks. I suppose swimming pools aren’t surrounded by paving stones, but if they were, and someone did some kind of dive from really high up, then the paving stones quite far back from the pool (not the ones that got the full drenching, but just the ones that were kind of freckled with droplets) would have looked like this. I’m just trying to give you some idea of what the ground would have looked like, underneath me.
And you know what else – well, this was when I started to notice things were a bit weird, you know, I mean, because so far it probably sounds pretty ordinary. So the other thing was the shadows. Because I was walking up, over these paving stones, and I was looking around me, and the buildings would cast these big, slanted shadows.
That still sounds ordinary enough. Nothing special. But you see – this is the point I’m trying to get around to – the shadows weren’t actually shadows at all. Obviously, I didn’t realize this straight away. Otherwise, it would’ve been the first thing I mentioned, because this was seriously strange.
Because a giant bird was perched on the building. I think it must just have been one bird. I only really saw this one bird clearly. It was big enough to have been a whole flock, though. Its feet were stretched out underneath a couple of trees, and it had just as many talons as there were branches on the trees, so it really did just looking the shadow of the trunk and branches, but actually it was this big black bird’s leg stretched out on the ground. And then, the big black slanting shadows of the buildings weren’t shadows at all. I really didn’t see it straight away, but once I saw the legs beneath the trees I could see the whole shape of the bird. And these big black slanted shapes that I had taken to be shadows were in fact big black wings, with these thin black feathers closely linked together, but fanning out a little bit here and there, and being ruffled slightly by the wind.
And raised above the entrance to the Arts Centre, there was the bird’s head. And it was something quite special, this head. Because, when I had been walking up to the building, I hadn’t even noticed it. It was only when I saw the wings, and I followed the pattern of the feathers, that I noticed them forming into a circular pattern, creating a kind of ruff, like an Elizabethan ruff, that I even saw where the neck began, though for the most part it was obscured by the roof of the building. But right over the arch of the double doors there was this head, huge and black, with a long beak, black also, but with a streak of silver grey outlining its shape.
I didn’t know what to do. I wasn’t exactly scared, but I felt like I should run away. It seemed the sensible course of action, anyway. So I did, I ran. It was probably a mistake, actually. My glasses fell off almost immediately. The world had become a blur, but I could feel a hard wind on my back, and I knew from the sound of huge black feathers rushing through the air that this wind was caused by the bird’s wings beating right behind me. Yes, I had made a terrible mistake by running and attracting the beast’s attention! Behind me, its vast dark eyes were fixed upon me, and I suppose from then on all action was pretty much automatic. Those huge wings propelled the creature pretty effectively. Before I knew it, those hundreds of talons where shredding the clothes off my back, and in another moment I was naked. But of course, the talons did not stop with that. I felt them tearing easily through the flesh of my back. I was still running, naked as I was, and that was when I finally stopped, because I saw the stones all over the ground in front of me and realised how pointless it really was. I turned around. I wanted to face the bird. I was just in time to see the black beak opening. Its inner throat was deep silver-grey, just like the streaks along the beak. Its breath was almost odorless, and cold, more like a cold breeze than the breath of an animal. It gave me a sense of vague satisfaction that instead of ripping me to shreds, the bird chose to eat my head whole. I am not aware of what became of the rest of me.
- - -
Ben Osborn is a jobseeking graduate, freelance writer and composer, from Oxford, England.
By Ben Osborn
It had been raining that day, and if I remember this right, the paving stones beneath my feet where freckled. I mean they looked like they were freckles. I mean it was like splash marks. I suppose swimming pools aren’t surrounded by paving stones, but if they were, and someone did some kind of dive from really high up, then the paving stones quite far back from the pool (not the ones that got the full drenching, but just the ones that were kind of freckled with droplets) would have looked like this. I’m just trying to give you some idea of what the ground would have looked like, underneath me.
And you know what else – well, this was when I started to notice things were a bit weird, you know, I mean, because so far it probably sounds pretty ordinary. So the other thing was the shadows. Because I was walking up, over these paving stones, and I was looking around me, and the buildings would cast these big, slanted shadows.
That still sounds ordinary enough. Nothing special. But you see – this is the point I’m trying to get around to – the shadows weren’t actually shadows at all. Obviously, I didn’t realize this straight away. Otherwise, it would’ve been the first thing I mentioned, because this was seriously strange.
Because a giant bird was perched on the building. I think it must just have been one bird. I only really saw this one bird clearly. It was big enough to have been a whole flock, though. Its feet were stretched out underneath a couple of trees, and it had just as many talons as there were branches on the trees, so it really did just looking the shadow of the trunk and branches, but actually it was this big black bird’s leg stretched out on the ground. And then, the big black slanting shadows of the buildings weren’t shadows at all. I really didn’t see it straight away, but once I saw the legs beneath the trees I could see the whole shape of the bird. And these big black slanted shapes that I had taken to be shadows were in fact big black wings, with these thin black feathers closely linked together, but fanning out a little bit here and there, and being ruffled slightly by the wind.
And raised above the entrance to the Arts Centre, there was the bird’s head. And it was something quite special, this head. Because, when I had been walking up to the building, I hadn’t even noticed it. It was only when I saw the wings, and I followed the pattern of the feathers, that I noticed them forming into a circular pattern, creating a kind of ruff, like an Elizabethan ruff, that I even saw where the neck began, though for the most part it was obscured by the roof of the building. But right over the arch of the double doors there was this head, huge and black, with a long beak, black also, but with a streak of silver grey outlining its shape.
I didn’t know what to do. I wasn’t exactly scared, but I felt like I should run away. It seemed the sensible course of action, anyway. So I did, I ran. It was probably a mistake, actually. My glasses fell off almost immediately. The world had become a blur, but I could feel a hard wind on my back, and I knew from the sound of huge black feathers rushing through the air that this wind was caused by the bird’s wings beating right behind me. Yes, I had made a terrible mistake by running and attracting the beast’s attention! Behind me, its vast dark eyes were fixed upon me, and I suppose from then on all action was pretty much automatic. Those huge wings propelled the creature pretty effectively. Before I knew it, those hundreds of talons where shredding the clothes off my back, and in another moment I was naked. But of course, the talons did not stop with that. I felt them tearing easily through the flesh of my back. I was still running, naked as I was, and that was when I finally stopped, because I saw the stones all over the ground in front of me and realised how pointless it really was. I turned around. I wanted to face the bird. I was just in time to see the black beak opening. Its inner throat was deep silver-grey, just like the streaks along the beak. Its breath was almost odorless, and cold, more like a cold breeze than the breath of an animal. It gave me a sense of vague satisfaction that instead of ripping me to shreds, the bird chose to eat my head whole. I am not aware of what became of the rest of me.
- - -
Ben Osborn is a jobseeking graduate, freelance writer and composer, from Oxford, England.
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