City evening

It's the blue-grey gentle light of the evening. Not dark yet, not even twilight but the lights are on in the houses and the birds are singing about bedtime. She sits in the garden on a wooden chair drinking cider and listening to the sounds around her. In the distance someone is playing a piano. Above her a pigeon flaps in the Birch tree, trying to find a roost.

Gently all the little birds are warbling about nighttime.

There is a police siren.

She listens. 

She can hear the boy racers on the dual carriageway having their Saturday night show-off. Next door are cooking curry and she can hear the sizzle of the frying pan, she can smell the garlic and onion. A bird chip-chip-chip-chips in the big Evergreen tree a few doors down. Is it a blackbird? She doesn't know.  The cat that lives outdoors comes to see her, with it's rubbish miaow and bony body. She picks it up and strokes it, teases out the tangles, tries to straighten the tail that somehow once got broken, strokes it's little Bat-like leather ears. 

It's supposed to be Summer but it's not very warm.  None of the flowers are blooming that should be. 

She can hear the city and the ring road and in the distance the motorway. A car drives up the road, a rap music crescendo. 

Somebody shouts, somebody shrieks. 

It's too noisy and it's too crowded and there is nowhere to go to find peace. 

Another siren passes.