The hallway serves its purpose. People walk through the brightness of the large windows on both sides. Some glance out to see what the weather is like or take a quick scan of the lot to see which of the powerful have filled their reserved parking spots. Others walk through so wrapped up in their days that they fail to notice the world beyond the glass at all.
Birds are sometimes fooled by the reflective glass on bright days or the illusion of a clear path to the other side at twilight; their moments of impact seldom seen or heard by the people inside. The images are left, in the oils and dust each bird carries on its wings – pressed suddenly onto the glass in fine detail. An instant of flight and graceful freedom captured in the faintest of prints. The image of the bird held in suspended animation until the next rainstorm or custodian’s rag.
1pointperspective 
Avian graffiti.
It was a bitch trying to capture that with a cell phone camera.
You did a primo job with just the words.
Jeez what a way to go…I think you should draw a chalk line around that image.
It seems that particular bird survived the impact. Not all of them do. I felt like the ghostly image somehow spoke to much more philosophical thoughts than I managed to generate.
mighty fine writing onepoint. i’ll buy the coffee today….
I wasn’t really happy with the writing, as I felt like I could have done a better job. I was worried I’d end up with something I’d dislike more and more until I finally just deleted it instead of ever hitting “publish”….so….I hit publish and hoped for the best….looks like I scored a cup of java!
Nicely done sir.
Whenever I see one of those I want to put a cartoon bubble on the glass that says something like pfwahhhh. I don’t know why I think birds make that sound when the wind gets knocked out of them. I just do.
I once hit a small bird in flight while driving at highway speed. It sounded just like my car was getting hit with a snowball made of pure powder. Actually, it kind of looked that way too. Were it not the dead of summer, I might have just assumed it was those rotten kids who live by the highway.
If you look carefully, you can also see the smear of the cat chasing the bird.
Now you tell me! Birds flying into windows are graceful but unfortunate members of he wild animal kingdom. Cats running into windows is pure funny with none of the poetic appeal.
Birds often hit our picture window. It is amazing to me that they get back up and fly away!
Beautiful prose 1Point!
Thanks Suze. I hope you don’t mind, but I have this often annoying habit of shortening people’s names to suit my own tastes. If it bothers you, I’ll try to stop.
Love it!
I thought that was graffiti on the wall.
It was a crappy picture to try to take, especially with a not-very-smart-phone.
The detail can actually be really impressive, but won’t show up in a photo at all.
Such a wordsmith. You described so beautifully what is so full of avian flu. P.S.- I almost got shit on by a huge bird shit early today. One of many things that happened today, that got me ready for fucking Friday. Am I right?
Only the magnificent Andrew could so deftly use the words “wordsmith” and “bird shit” so eloquently in the same comment. I bow to you sir.
It’s all about balance. That’s why I always watch a Sylvester Stallone film after an Ingmar Bergman vehicle.
I found a bird-print on my living-room window once. No corresponding bird body, though.
We had a red tailed hawk dead in the mulch below the windows at work for a few days, I think the custodian wanted to make sure it was really, really dead before he picked it up.
Nice imagery, both verbal and pictorial. It’s lovely that you stopped to contemplate a little corner of our world that we often overlook.
My sister had the same thing happen at her house. http://hereandtheresa.wordpress.com/2012/10/06/angels-wings-images-on-a-window/
The impressions are usually very detailed, yet incredibly transient.
Your photo captured the outline beautifully! As my sister pointed out, I’ve also documented bird or angel’s wings on my bay window. This happens rather frequently but the birds seem to shake it off and fly away. Eerie and surreal but I like!
Nicely written piece… We have a large window and that sometimes happens. Then I have to rush out there and hope its gone, which means it was fine. Or try and wake it up if it knocked itself unconscious. It’s so hard to find such tiny little smelling salts..
You could opt for a little bucket of cold water, I suppose….