The feathers escape

Original fiction extract.

At the pillow workshop, my aunt had been checking a seam when the window blew open. A gust crossed the cutting table. Before she could turn the pillow over, a small white cloud pushed through the unfinished opening. She held it against her apron, but the first feathers were already travelling towards the ceiling.

They rose with an absurd lack of hurry, a snowfall which had forgotten the ground. One settled on the clock’s minute hand. Another turned beside my aunt’s ear like a question she had not heard. Across the room, sunlight caught the smaller pieces and made the air look freshly scratched with white. My aunt’s first attempt to gather them produced another slow explosion. The feathers separated around her hands, refusing every shape except their own. Even those which touched the floor seemed ready to begin a second journey.

She closed the window, put the pillow safely down and began laughing. I laughed too, which sent a feather from my sleeve onto the finished cushions. We spent the next half-hour collecting the workshop from the air. When the clock moved again, the feather on its hand dropped neatly into my aunt’s open palm.

Choose three powerful words or phrases from the extract above. Analyse how the writer uses language to describe the movement of the escaping feathers.

Write about 200 to 250 words.