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The statue stood guard on the canal side, hunched at the shoulders. The driver inched closer. Closer. Until he was only a matter of feet away. Without alarm, soundless, the statue became a heron spreading its wings, lifting its legs beneath its belly and cruising in a steady flat glide to take up station a few yards further down the bank. The driver looked back at where he had come from. A quick fag break, that had been the idea, before he'd stumbled through a line of trees, craving only shade, and chanced upon this different world, an explorer emerging from a desert with the last of his water exhausted. He'd been delivering all day with the Transit door slid right back, but the air that came washing into the cab was still furnace hot. The whole country was burning up, the radio reporting tarmac melting, tyres getting stuck in the resulting treacle. Rails buckling, shops cleared out of sunscreen, even the nights were too hot to allow any respite. People going slowly mad. He kept hearing what he thought was a cat calling, but the sound came from overhead. He figured the heat must be getting to him, until he saw a bird swirling upwards in circles over woodland off to the left. It was joined by a second, rising in a concentric pattern. He thought they were crows at first, but knew that crows don't soar like that; they keep a steady course with loose lazy wingbeats. Making a visor with his hands, he tried to keep track. Were they eagles? The driver looked back at where he had come from. The heron took off again, skimming the water and then nonchalantly easing itself up over the brickwork of a humpback bridge. Still falling from the sky, the Siren call of the creatures he thought might be eagles. Sweat was stinging his eyes. I'll go as far as that bridge, the driver decided. When he got there he could see down over the land dropping away from the canal, land marked by a network of paths stretching off towards the horizon. Only the occasional house, a silent tractor with an escort of gulls moving in the far distance. The driver looked back at where he had come from, through the trees to the van in the lay-by. He checked his watch, only forty minutes to get to the next drop-off. Another half hour to the one after that, and so on and so on. A life of deadlines. Forever. The driver looked back at where he had come from and he began to walk.
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