Seven O'Clock

There is a bridge, and at dusk a lot of people stand on it holding paper cups and not talking. The Congress Avenue Bridge, Austin, at seven or close to it. A crowd, a concrete underside, a strip of sky gone peach.

Then they come out. The bats. A million and a half Mexican free-tailed bats pour from the seams of the bridge in a slow dark rope, and turn, and stream off east over the water toward the supper of the night.

The crowd makes a sound. It is the sound of a lot of people forgiving something at once.

One bat is not going the way the rope is going. It is hanging at the lip of a seam, looking at you. It makes a sound you can't hear, and you feel it in your wrist.