It was dusk, in August. The stars were about to come out and there wasn't a breath of air. The light was faint. I was waiting for the headlights of a truck, lost somewhere in the mountains of Xishuangbanna, to try and photograph those swallows.
They hung there on the power lines, motionless. Their usual vitality didn't show. A few kept dancing in the sky, to cheer, perhaps, the rest of their sisters.