zodiac3 Dec 2005

Wow, nice writing. My only criticism is you seems like you're missing some explanation - what's up with the fire and what it has to do with the herons, for starters. Yeah, on a second or third read, I can kind of guess, but my honest opinion is it needs a line, a half-line of explanation. Maybe:

1.) More details of the fire.
2.) More connecting the fire to the flood.
3.) The timing - so the bird came before the fire? That's kind of jarring.
4.) Who's saying all of the lines in quotes.
5.) What exactly happened to the bird?
6.) Who are the boatmen, what's their deal?

And a couple others. I'm not stupid or a bad reader. I'm just having a hard time piecing this together. I think it might help to consider your action/story/whatever like a movie or nature-hike: start by looking at one thing, pan to the next, pan to the next, pan to the next, and so on.

That said, you sure can write. Golly.