The birds weren’t a particularly recognizable species. Both type and size were undeterminable; they looked more like black pepper flecks spilled on a table cloth, moving across the sky from a warm breath. There were so many bird flecks that they became their own shadow cloud, causing anyone underneath to catch their breath at the sight.

Seeing such a large grouping take flight from the fields wasn’t abnormal to Kyle. There were always all sorts of things buzzing over his head in the sky. He might have only noticed because he was driving his 1998 Honda toward the foothills for a much needed few hours of peace and fresh air. Kyle made this drive four times a year, merely reminded it was time again by the change of the season. Lately, it had become more of a quest than a visit since his car was redundant with hinting that he wanted to retire from personal explorations.

Kyle imagined that each person had their own set of rules to achieve calm and afford themselves a punch on a reset button. His secret was to find the base of a mountain and befriend it. Bring a book, take a nap, but whatever it was, he must listen to nothing  else but what was around him. Somehow, afterward he felt more capable of moving forward on the right path. Those who lived near a beach might find the same at the base of the waves, Kyle considered. He could see how the lapping tide was as clear an invitation to peace as a finger curl.

Though Kyle’s Honda hadn’t made it to the mountain yet, the vision of the birds across the sky, flying west along his progress initiated the tranquility within him. And before he could count to ten, they were elsewhere, leaving Kyle and his Honda behind.

Jules was moving slowly through her backyard, finding the chore of bagging up tumbleweeds and shoveling her dog Ringo’s remains just as tedious and uninspiring as she had anticipated it would be. Still, when Jules made up her mind that morning to finally get it done, she knew she wouldn’t back out on herself. She had Ringo to keep her company too, and he splashed around like a clown in the half disintegrated leafs as if to make up for his part of the mess.

“Having fun?” Jules asked Ringo, switching to another black plastic bag for a new load.

Growl, snarf was the reply.

“Doesn’t look like much fun to me, but you’re doing a good job advertising for it.” Ringo hacked indignantly, as if leaf splashing were a matter of opinion.

Jules noticed the birds as they made their way over her part of the sky. Even Ringo paused. There were so many of them they caused a pattern unlike any known dot or stripe; more like an ink sneeze from a broken pen. Jules took a deep breath at the sight, whispering to Ringo, “do you see that?” The plastic bag stilled in the wind, giving the impression that the world had paused to catch its breath as well.

And then the birds separated into two quilt patches; each still considerable in size. Jules thought it looked as if the road in the sky had suddenly forked, one group of birds was moving one direction while the other group moved completely in the opposite.

“You think the ones in the front are in charge?” Jules asked in a whisper, more to herself now than to Ringo. The birds shrank to freckles when she asked her next question, this one so intentionally for herself alone that she didn’t even ask it aloud. Or do their wings just follow the wind?

At first, Enid was too busy running to notice the sky and the progress of the birds above her head. It was a habit of any twelve year old, boy or girl, to leave the house at a run. Sometimes Enid imagined there was an invisible rotating door, caught in a fast spin that launched her outside. She was no more eager than normal to go play, which is also to say that she was the same amount of eager as always. Sometimes energy just boiled out of twelve year old, along with any other child able to walk, and they had to start shaking or jumping. Or, as was Enid’s case, running over the tall scratchy winter grass to the pile of sunflower seeds she intentionally made yesterday.

Enid was looking at her knees instead of the sky. After that, it was at the absent pile, which was only recognizable by the little soft mound of dirt she still carried the remains of under her fingernails. She smiled then, pink and shyly, even though no one was around to see it. Enid glanced around to make sure that was definitely the case, she didn’t want anyone to know her secret daily ritual of treating the unknown animals to salty bits. It was only then that the birds in the sky finally entranced Enid.

She counted with a straight finger in the air, pointing them out to herself. There were two, no, three groups. The second and third had just split. All three groups were heading in opposite directions, but they were all at the same height in the sky. One group had morphed into a letter that was somewhere in between a V and C, another group was fiddling around with shapes, unable to decide between a circle and a triangle. The final group was a straight line like the one Enid had to walk in to get to the lunchroom at school. All three were spread across the sky so that Enid had to turn in circles to keep observing them.

When the sky had darkened and the birds had at last bedded themselves in the horizon, the stars themselves were considering collecting themselves into one large group to heighten their appearance. Kyle shivered, politely requesting more heat from his Honda, unsure what else might be in charge of distributing the warmth. Jules was steaming her cold out in a shower, while Ringo snuggled on the bath mat and munched away on a sacrificed fuzzy bed slipper. As Enid hoarded away another handful of sunflower seeds in her pocket for the next day, she pulled on her favorite sweater that had recently become too short on the arms.

The stretch of distance the birds had achieved was immeasurable by kilometer or mile. For those who had stopped to take notice stayed outside longer than intended but figured the chill was an acceptable price when the time it takes to forget is measured in heartbeats.