Sunday, December 09, 2007

Startled

Two rather alarming things happened to me last week.

I sometimes take a shortcut through the anatomy department to get to my classroom. On Wednesday, as I strode briskly down the main corrider I glanced in an open door. An old man with white hair stared back at me - a cadaver lying on a stainless-steel dissection table. He looked rather startled himself actually.

On Thursday morning, the children and I stepped out of the front door to find that it was still quite dark. A rainstorm was brewing. Just at that moment, a black cloud loomed in towards our street at great speed, getting lower and lower and more and more menacing. It was an enormous flock of starlings.

4 comments:

spentrails said...

How very Daphne du Maurier! I thought the black cloud was going to burst with pouring rain immediately above you all. Good job the starlings didn't start precipitating.

Anonymous said...

Exhilarating to watch starlings in those huge waves, I watched them for ages last year on the station platform in Pau.

I'd like to leave my body to the anatomy department ... but wouldn't like to give anyone a fright!

During the war my father had to do a post mortem on a man who had died at sea. The only place he could find to put the body was in a bath and he said every time the ship rolled the body did too ... he gave up in the end.

Lucy said...

Both rather uncanny!
Thanks for the booklist, I'm just impressed you've read that much of anything really.

Anonymous said...

Startling, yes, but at least everything in their rightful places.

No enormous flock of starlings swarming out of the anatomy class...

No cadavre swooping down on you from the sky...

Confinement

Being confined indoors most of the day, just the four of us, is reminding me of the days when my children were wee and most of our weekends ...