Cacaphony

Meet the magpie.

It makes a sound like the slow pull of a rusty nail out of old wood. It is relentless, and generally bored. It likes to join its friends outside open windows, especially before dawn on weekends. These striking birds can harrass one another for hours. This particular specimen is young, immature and cannot fly. Ironically, it is the noisiest one of the flock.

The group I seem to have fallen into (and will not leave, apparently) is not the warm fuzzy we-are-the-world congregation of similars that I would have expected. I would not have expected how quickly these brilliant, cannibalistic, bored, and entertaining individuals regroup themselves from the binary to be so vivid, diverse and consistent. They tear each other apart. They ignore the uninitiated, the lost, or the over-eager. They are only gentle to the truly stupid. And those, they carefully scoop up and return to the branch.

I'm not sure if I have been returned to the branch, or everyone is too lazy to get up and shut the damned window.