Monk Parakeets, To Be Precise

We're down by Green-Wood Cemetery, Katie and I, walking down Fifth Avenue.  The neighborhood has gone from the bustle of Park Slope to something decidedly less bustle-y, and old boarded up buildings slouch side by side with mid-century industrial spaces in a competition to see who can be the most depressing.

We're passing by a power transformer station when from above the trees of the graveyard come a flock of squawking, fast-moving birds, and we watch them until they pass directly over us, their green (green?) bodies slaloming through the air, wheeling and darting like a gang of kids running riot through the streets.

"Holy shit," I say, "were those fucking parrots?"