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Two years ago I was walking up a mountain path having been told of excellent views from the summit The day was clear and hot, the sky wide and cloudless There was only the sound of my breath, my boots treading, and the faint clonking of cowbells back down the track What little wind there was on the climb soon dropped as I reached the summit, as if it had been distracted or called upon to cover events elsewhere I drank eagerly, catching my breath, and then took in the view, which was as spectacular as I had been told I could make out a tree, a shrub, really  (it being so distant in the valley below I couldn’t say how high), silently on fire, the smoke trailing a vertical black line before dissipating I watched the flames consume the whole shrub No one came to stop it No one seemed to be around to see it, and I felt very alone From nowhere a great tearing came: a fighter-jet, low and aggressive, ripped above me and, surprised, I dropped on one knee and watched it zoom, bellowing overhead As it passed I saw a shred of something fall, a rag, spinning I shielded my eyes to see, bewildered and pinned watching the object, the rag, gather its falling weight, its speed, until it flumped down without a bounce, only ten footsteps to my right It was part of a white bird, a gull No head, just a wing and a hunk of body No leg, or tail, just the wing and the torso: purple and bloodied A violent puddle surrounded it, already mixing with the grit Ferrous blood wafted and I recoiled feeling suddenly cold and very high up and the view swam madly: I saw for a second the flaming tree as I staggered backwards and became aware that I was sitting, I had fallen, but I felt as if I was falling and falling still, my mind unable to connect the events which were real and terrifying because they were real, only now I think it was not, perhaps, a mountain, it was not, perhaps, a shrub on fire, and not a fighter-jet boring its noise through the sky, and I am certain now, it was not me, or a wing