[The air smells of wet slate and iron. The therapist, a woman in a heavy wool coat, sits on a stone bench carved into the parapet. The gargoyle, named Silas, is perched on a drip-stone ledge, his stone wings folded tightly. Rain drips rhythmically from the crenellations, hitting the slick flagstones below.] THERAPIST: You mentioned the pigeons are the worst. Not the height, not the damp, but the pigeons. SILAS: (A low, gravelly rumble) They are… disorganized. They do not understand the geometry of this place. THERAPIST: They are birds, Silas. They fly here. SILAS: They do not respect the eaves. They gather on the cornices like spilled gravel. And they make that sound. That rapid, wet coo that seems to vibrate the very mortar. [A sudden flash of movement across the wet roofline—a flock of pigeons taking flight.] SILAS: (He recoils, pressing his weight against the cold stone, his head dipping low. His stone fingers twitch.) See? They just… scatter. They have no understanding of permanence. They are always moving, always dirtying the edges. THERAPIST: You are a guardian, Silas. You are meant to observe permanence. To withstand the elements. SILAS: I am meant to look down. To watch the street below. I am not meant to be… invaded by things that land on my shoulders. Things that leave their little, greasy gifts on my magnificent, millennia-old stone. THERAPIST: We can work on it. We can start with the sound. Just the sound. Can you describe it for me? SILAS: It is a rapid, wet punctuation mark. A series of meaningless, fluttering notes. It is the sound of things that do not belong to the architecture. It is the sound of a breach.
drizzle · uneasy