excerpt

Frozen Salmon
Have you ever noticed how the sparrows walk? They don’t go from one foot to the other, but they jump on both feet at the same time, and have you noticed that when a sparrow discovers some food to eat, as if in a flash, a bunch of other sparrows run to him, ready to share the discovery among themselves? Just like people, when one of them discovered gold in the remote areas of the West, back in the day, as the books and films have shown, a swarm of companies rushed to the place, staking land and employing a good number of people to find some of that exceptional metal.
It has been a quiet evening. Costa was relaxing in the Columbia Hotel stand when a swarm of sparrows on the sidewalk, in front of his eyes, jumped from spot to spot looking for scraps of food. He was mesmerized by the birds’ behaviour as they reacted to each other. It was the time when the light was dimmed, the evening was coming fast, and the eyes of people and those of the birds had to focus twice as hard to distinguish one thing from another. And the time was coming fast when they’d have to go and hide in the bushes, to roost and spend their night. Yet it seemed that these sparrows loved the dark hours of the evening and night, just as Costa did, driving the night shift of the taxicab 79; he had been outside the Columbia Hotel for a good ten minutes, hoping to get a fare when the first drops of rain splattered on his windshield and awakened him from his philosophical reverie. Then he realized the sparrows were all gone. Another big raindrop fell on his glass. Costa wondered why some raindrops were big and round while others were elongated.

https://draft2digital.com/book/4250839#print

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763866