snow dream

I was on a ski slope mountain and there were black birds flying up in the gray sky. One got closer and when it landed on a nearby pine I could see it was gargantuan, the size of a manatee, with a long magpie tail. I called to it and raised my arms coaxingly, it seemed to grow further, a megafauna, big and pleistocene. Its black shining eye regarded me as it leaned over, bending the pine tree down, and it dipped its slightly spoon-shaped beak into the snow in front of me. The beak was as long as I was tall, but I did not feel scared of the dragon-bird. It flew away in a numb spray of frost, its wingbeats like paralyzing vacuums. Later when my friend came by on skis I tried to show him the marks the beak made in the snow but they were smudged and lost.

[via]