Black Diamond

I like to think of it as mine. I’ve been around long enough, longer than my closest mates, that owner’s rights ought to befall me. But I can be generous, of course. On weekdays between 9am-5pm I pretty much have to, and during the summer, forget about it, a pure free-for-all.

My favourite vantage point is from the water, on a day like today bobbing in the breeze, a gentle current tugging at my legs. I hardly need to stretch my neck to take in the entirety of it. Shimmering as it does in the sun, sparkles cascading off the polished black granite. I puff out my chest, one can be proud. 

The heavy hum of a diesel engine and the cackle of foreign tourists destroy the moment. Another of those wretched canal boats. Like pendulums they swing back and forth across the inner harbour, stopping at selected focal points for passengers to gawk and point their phones. Show some respect I feel like announcing. Naturally, they won’t understand me.

“Straight ahead you see the new extension of the royal library, housing all works of literature published here. One of the largest collections in the Nordics.” The tinny voice traveling through the microphone tells a story I’ve heard a million times before. They usually omit the fact that my favourite fairytale lives there. Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Ugly Duckling”.

Someone throws an empty can out the side of the boat, almost hitting me. The gall. The sacrilege. Enough. I hiss loudly as I rise tall, spreading my white feathers, the broadest wingspan I can muster. That’ll show them. No matter what they say, it’s my Black Diamond. 

Inspired by the Curtis Brown Creative flash fiction competition prompt “Landmark” and the Royal Library in Copenhagen, fondly known as the Black Diamond.