- The voice
- None — the flock never speaks, and never all moves at once
- Home
- The Luna LagunaWhere the lake stops being a lake — the first warm water, and the moon in it before you look up
- Part of
- Sleep namesA character per sleep word, so the word is learnt without being taught.
The story of Flamingo to Sleep
Flamingo to Sleep are standing in the shallows at the edge of the Luna Laguna, and they are asleep. Standing up. On one leg, with the other folded away and invisible, and the head laid back along the shoulders — back, not underneath, which is the thing that keeps them from turning into the swan. It is the most famous sleeping posture there is, and a two-year-old can draw it. They were not placed here. A saline lagoon is what a flamingo actually needs, so the birds and the water arrived together, and the whole flock is one long still shape along the margin the way the Sleepatees are one long still shape in the water. They run from a chalky dusty rose into a soft violet, every bird a slightly different band and no two neighbours the same, which is our own aurora worn as feathers. One of them is the deepest violet in the flock. Nobody ever points at it. And the colour is the true thing about them, which is the best kind: a flamingo is pink because of what it eats. The colour comes out of the algae and the tiny shrimp it filters out of the water, so a wild flock runs anywhere from almost white to deep rose depending on dinner. They turn pink from their food. The motion is a chorus motion and it is almost nothing. One bird shifts its weight from one leg to the other. Then, a long time later, another one does. Never together, never a ripple passing along the line, never anything that reads as a wave — standing is stiller than floating, so they are slower than the raft. The water is ankle-shallow and mirror-flat and every bird is doubled by its own reflection, and if it ripples the picture is wrong.
Friends
The SleepateesThe raft out in the warm water, breathing out of time, while the flock stands on the edge of it.
The Still HeronFurther along the same margin, entirely on his own, and awake.