Bird or Beast

In the courtyard of the villa, overhung by vine leaves, and grapes like smooth beach-glass, strange creatures hover.

At first they look like giant insects. Bigger than bees, bodies much thicker than moths but wings much smaller, much faster. Grey, with a small black tail, like the tail of a bird, and their wings flash orange.

They fly, at extreme speed, from flower to flower, extending into each a thin black proboscis. Their heads, too, are bird like. Only, they have thin black antennae which extend out like those of a butterfly.

They move too fast to see. It is impossible to watch one for long enough to discern whether it is a bird or an insect, for having never seen such a creature before, one can only apply the criteria one recognises and hope to categorise correctly. But it is somewhere between the two. A tiny bird with antennae. Or a large insect with a feathery tail, that moves like a hummingbird.

We've watched them sporadically all day. They are rarer than the bees. You need to wait a long time before they come again, once they've been. And when they do come back they're too fast again to see what they are, and you're left with the same feeling of unsated curiosity, of wonder.

I'll wait for them in the morning by the orange flowers, hoping to catch a long enough glance to decide, bird or insect. To categorise. For now they rest in that space between two circles of a Venn diagram. They hover, between the two.