With the birds

I'm on my way to work. It's raining, but the rain is so light it's unable to fall, and instead cavorts wildly in the twisting wind, my jacket collecting the drops like tiny fluff. There is a black man standing on the other side of Broad Lane, his hands held together as if performing a rite, a magpie sitting between them. The bird is in no rush to fly away. He pops it onto his shoulder and begins to languidly flap his arms like a bird of prey; then he jogs up and down the pavement, grinning wildly at the drivers in the lorries and cars going by. The bird trots behind his head to sit on his other shoulder, happy as Larry.