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bird of prey at our window

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-seven years and one million words

Toronto, 2017.04.29

A bird of prey suddenly arrived on our balcony, diving at a mourning dove. The predator appeared quite suddenly, and swooped at a tight angle to catch the dove on the rail. The dove was knocked onto our balcony, the falcon beating its wings a couple of times to catch the thing as it fell away. The dove somehow got itself airborne and away before the falcon could recover. The falcon then flapped off to a nearby tree, and had a look around. When The Girl started exclaiming at the whole thing, the falcon too left for a distant house-top.

rand()m quote

Remove everything that has no relevance to the story. If you say in the first chapter that there is a rifle hanging on the wall, in the second or third chapter it absolutely must go off. If it's not going to be fired, it shouldn't be hanging there.

—Anton Chekhov