It crashed loudly into the branches of the leafless apple tree, splintering wood and screaming aloud. It sounded like a hawk’s cry, it did. I ran towards it. It was an angel! An angel, cast down from the heavens and fallen to the earth. It’s big brown wings were twisted, and it was horribly cut from where it crashed into the tree, and yet it’s crashing into the tree very well might have saved its life, for the tree slowed its fall enough so that when it fell out of the tree, it was not hurt as badly as it would have been if it had landed on the cold, hard ground first.
I ran up to it, filled first with excitement and then with concern. It was moaning, and occasionally it uttered a lamenting phrase in some incomprehensible language, and tears ran down its face. I saw that instead of a normal nose and mouth, it had a curved bird’s beak, of the sort that eagles have. I knelt beside it, not sure if I should move it inside, or if moving it might just injure it more.