He awoke in the cold backseat of an old station wagon. Checking his pockets for loose articles of personal significance, he scanned the peripheral. He especially enjoyed observing the urban birds playing their urban games. He watched as they fell in wild circles from campus apartment complexes. To him, the fluidity of their descent and ascension represented a freedom which he deeply desired. Grabbing a book and flipping to the first blank page, Levin proceeded to write with enthusiasm…
“Hey you arched winged descendants of imaginary angels, it’s cold as ice in the wind…yet you fly the expanse of perpetual sky – put on your feathered coats and fly with your wings cutting that thick density. Above buildings you soar with each other, some brotherly company playing you play your games with. My muscles are sore just watching you, but I suppose I’d care less if I could see things from your perspective. Old Man winter’s fist hasn’t grasped you…time hasn’t grasped you…you’ve flown in spite of oppressors, martyrs, poets, musicians…in spite of deaths, my death, births, my birth, and all else. For these reasons I declare my muted love for you, and your kind.”
Satisfied with himself, he placed the book on the seat beside him. Turning his headphones up, he rolled over and nestled in the warm comfort that the blankets provided. He enjoyed the ability he had to leave on a whim. At any moment, she would call for his companionship. The pen slipped from his fingers as the blanket came down. Clenching the worn fabric, he fell back to sleep. Outside the world went about its weary business. College students, overburdened with books and stifled with dream, drank double-shots of espresso as they descended staircases. Hundreds of faces were positioned in front of computer screens, invested in laborious efforts. He wrestled with the confines that pursuit of knowledge prompted. In the Purdy-Kresge library students attached their lives to threaded emails, and waited impatiently for lettered approval to appear.
(Okkervil River – “Bleeding Black Sheep Boy”)
