The kite glides over the field.

It’s the newest model, but the silver sheen of manufacturing has worn and cracked. The steel frame shakes as turbulence impacts it, carrying crew and cargo above the tumult below. What little is left of the shine slowly disappears as smoke leaves its grime on the metal shell.

Lift is a strange thing. The wings seem too small, too stiff, too lifeless to support such a heavy object, yet the calculations are done, and they are deemed sufficient.

At the bottom of the machine, the viewfinder searches the ground far below. The little window of glass is the only clean surface, though its own transparency only reveals the dull gray silhouettes under scrutiny. Building after indistinguishable building passes by, before a flash of color, and a red splash of fabric reaches the sky.

“Clear!” A thud. “Away!”

Distant thunder reaches the kite as it continues on its way

The kite glides over the field.

Feathers flutter as it alights atop a pole. There are few places with as good a view of the bounty below. The rotten stink is tangible, even from this height, but the sight of clear eyes is more than enough to pinpoint a meal.

Wings flap down toward the crumpled figures among the rubble. They blend in with it, and with each other, uniform in the coloring of their coverings. Some are pale, but that matters little.

There is enough here to be picky, but who knows how long such a feast will last. Talons find their mark, and dig in. The bird eyes the half-supported wall nearby. Its beak flashes, and a streak of red spurts upward, brightening the film of dust covering the remaining bodies.

A gust of takeoff is just too much for the crumbling stones, and a clatter of small rocks begins the building’s final collapse.

Distant thunder reaches the kite as it continues on its way.

The kite glides over the field.

The breeze is light on the ground, but stronger the higher the paper flies. Its twine is mostly off the spool, which has been neatly set under a rock to keep it in place. Today, this is the highest flying display.

Blankets are spread on the field below it, freed from the clean plaster walls above the sea. It is quiet too, soft chatter barely audible above the rustling of grass.

The pure white paper holds strong, impossible to miss against the cloudless blue sky. Not one of its trailing streamers have been lost, and their chaotic entanglements are silent among the gusts of wind. The twine waits patiently, and with a flash of red fabric, the spool is back in its young owner’s hands.

The cliffs only add to the flight, and the majesty, and the wonder. The sea roars to them, and the waves crash upward in awe.

Distant thunder reaches the kite as it continues on its way.