Flitter

How she remembered the gray-feathered titmouse flittering about as she stared unbelievingly at the grave of her sister and clung to Reese, then five years old.

There were two bugs flittering on either side of her.

The back of the group flittered in and out of my view, pulling me forward with only dim hopes of success.

A waxing moon riding high in the sky and a flitter of bats about the rooftops, dipping and swerving as they gathered up the gnats that danced there in ephemeral clouds.

Without a flitter of a blanket o'er me

But to return to where we left her, I see her still, propped up in a kind of stupor against one of the walls in which this wretched edifice abounds, her long grey greasy hair framing in its cowl of scrofulous mats a face where pallor, languor, hunger, acne, recent dirt, immemorial chagrin and surplus hair seemed to dispute the mastery. Flitters of perforated starch entwine an ear.

Then all three went out to the flitter. A tiny speedster, really; a torpedo bearing stubby wings and the ludicrous tail-surfaces, the multifarious driving-, braking-, side-, top-, and under-jets so characteristic of the tricky, cranky, but ultra-maneuverable breed.

Small flitters were powered and made ready, and everything that carried manual controls was inspected and cleared for action.