On a midwinter’s night, two men are getting ready to leave the house. Armed, they walk at a regular pace across the thin blanket of snow that covers the countryside. They remain silent, as they have been taught to do, and as it is done. There is an age difference between them, perhaps the younger man may be the son of the older; they find a good place, as they have been taught to do, and they lie in wait.

Around three-quarters of an hour goes by before they hear a sound. The older of the two does not move, just as they told him to do, and as the youngster must learn to do. He uncovers the weapon calmly and rests it carefully on his shoulder, before pointing the end of the barrel towards the source of the noise, and he waits.

He sharpens his senses, trying to visualize the shape that he believes is causing the noise. He imagines a claw, then some feathers. He thinks about that prehistoric body, one detail at a time, just as he can do and just as it is done. He then imagines the claw digging the soil, causing the dry leaves, covered by a thin layer of frost, to creak.

Now he pictures it tensing its lower muscles to push itself forward, he also imagines hearing the little kick that the whole world feels in response to that thrust. Now he waits. His gaze is turned towards the point in which his imagination should marry up with reality, this is the right way to do it, at a point in mid-air, right at the end of the foliage, in the azure of the morning.

He knows how to coordinate the direction of his gaze with that of the barrel of his gun, over the years he has also learned to find the right moment to pull the trigger, that’s how it must be done. He knows that, if his ability for abstraction is not deceiving him, the moment will soon come in which something that only existed in his mind will come to pass in reality. Any moment now. In no time at all. In just a moment.

The boy watches his father miss as the pitch-black bird flies off. We are in the seventeenth century. At the end of the 1980s, an old man catches sight of the same bird on a non-descript building. He notices it but does not pay much attention to it.

More than twenty years later, the sound of feathers reawakens the attention of a boy waiting for the bus on a cold midwinter’s morning. He raises his eyes, and there it is, right in front of him; the same bird once more. That same presence again.

The animal digs its legs in. It pushes down with all its might on that strip of the city that it can grasp with its arched limbs. The spaceboy turns and moves away. The old teachers take in the scene. They know that before sundown they will have another tribute, as they have learned to do, and thus it is done.

At the end of the 1980s, an old man catches sight of the same bird on a non-descript building. He notices it but does not pay much attention to it.

More than twenty years later, the sound of feathers reawakens the attention of a boy waiting for the bus on a cold midwinter’s morning. He raises his eyes, and there it is, right in front of him; the same bird once more. That same presence again.

The animal digs its legs in. It pushes down with all its might on that strip of the city that it can grasp with its arched limbs. The spaceboy turns and moves away. The old teachers take in the scene. They know that before sundown they will have another tribute, as they have learned to do, and thus it is done.