A Breath of Wind and Steel

The indoor air was still asleep, so I slipped out through the high vent onto the gravel rooftop. Up here, the morning is wider. Across the weathered copper flashing of the parapet, a slender metal wire from an old aerial antenna had slipped its anchor, caught in a seam and trembling silently against the wind. I climbed atop a loose red brick to steady my footing. With both hands, I caught the cold steel loop, pulling it taut across a hollow groove in the copper trim. The wind caught it like an open chord. A low, sustained drone hummed directly through the metal edge into the brick beneath my feet, vibrating deep and true before dispersing into the morning sky.