“Is it really strong?” my husband asked.
“Super-strong,” the salesperson answered, “These windows have been manufactured with the most sophisticated materials using a process that guarantees their durability and their ability to withstand a heavy blow from any intruder.”
A few months after the epic installation, I was working in our study and I heard kind of a whoosh and then a reverberating “Baaaammmmmmmm!” The walls shook. I jumped up and called to my husband as I walked toward the dining room.
“Was that you?! Are you okay?!”
A movement out the window caught my eye. Ew, what was that…? Something was moving on the ground under the sliding glass door. No, something was flapping. Big wings moved up and shakily down.
It was a falcon lying on its back, so stunned that I am sure it was seeing little cartoon people circling its head.
Three crows flew across our yard cawing angrily, “Come on! Get up! We need some carrion and you are our point falcon!”
The miserable raptor flew like it had had one too many and landed on a low branch and sat there, just trying to get its bearings. The crows crossed back again, urging it to get a move on.
Plainly, the falcon was taking a mental self-exam, “Beak, bent but not busted. Wind, knocked out of me. Wings, yep, they’re okay…really it was my head…ohhh.” And so it flew dizzily away, the crows cawing their triumph.
By now my husband had joined me at the window. He pointed out the feathers stuck to the window, and I showed him the smear the falcon left on the glass door.
“I don’t know if that counted as an intruder, but the glass isn’t even scratched!”