On the rooftop of a sleepy apartment building lies a garden I often escape to, resting on the edge of a silent urban street at night. Four flights above ground, the city lights are swallowed by the trees below, forming a cloud of flora that shimmers with streetlamps’ golden mist. Above, there are birds: slow birds, happy birds, timid birds, and clumsy birds. They fly between tree branches, hovering over benches that people would sit at during the daytime, and nestled in the vegetation where tomatoes and other goods are grown. The people who would sit in those benches, drenched in sunlight and plagued by summer heat, working away at the garden with sweat clinging persistently to their clothes, would be oblivious to the tranquil beauty of the blueish-blackish scene and deaf to the chorus that the birds begin each night.
    The song is best described as a hum: there are a small number of pineapple-sized yellow birds that whistle plaintively in a moaning bass. The green birds from the tropics would then accompany—a playful titter from one group at one tree, then a joyous half-screech from the opposite side of the garden. The blue birds play alto, but they are also the most unaware of the music that takes place—I cannot even hope to count the number of times that a blue bird has jumped onto a branch where a yellow bird or a green bird was resting at, just to startle the creature and stir an almost ruinous interruption to their delicate song; nonetheless, they too are part of the chorus. 
    Lastly, there are the white birds—these are the small, nearly invisible snowflakes of the sky, tiny beings that sing in the most delicate, almost inaudible voice. They are nearly imperceptible to the eye, their snowy feathers blending with moonlight, becoming as faint as a sliver of crescent moon against a backdrop of iridescent stars. The white birds are deeply nocturnal and sleep during the first few portions of the chorus, snoozing through the yellow birds’ whale-like hums, the green birds’ playful banter, and the blue birds’ brackish clumsiness towards the other birds. It is when the white birds open their eyes and reveal themselves to the night that they begin their part of the chorus, tiny peeping sounds of those just starting to awaken after a long, dreamy rest. Slowly, they resurface, white on blue on green on yellow. The birds sing along in their droning voices, a dim, somnolent melody that can only be heard by those in the rooftop garden at night, a harmony that sounds like nothing more than the rustle of leaves when heard beneath the trees on the city street below. 
    This is where I flee to every evening. Following the busy clang of supper, the buoyant chatter held between ma and pa and siblings, I ascend the fire escape and find my corner beneath the fluffiest tree. Lulled by a full stomach and drowsy in the summer heat, I await the song of the nocturnal bird garden before I drift asleep.