And then there was one

Discussion in 'Warbirds International' started by biles, Apr 17, 2007.

  1. biles

    biles Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jul 10, 2002
    Messages:
    3,898
    Location:
    49deg 11min 35.97sec N, 122deg 51min 57.65min W
    These two birds I got, I call them The Blue Birds. They look the same, so they don't each have a name, they got a group name, The Blue Birds. Pair of budgies.
    Lottsa people says budgies are smart.
    Not true.
    Budgies who been taught are sometimes smart. Budgies who ain't been taught aint smart. They live in a fuckin cage, what is there to get smart about? This is my food. This is the bottom of my cage, this over here, is the top. Over here is a hard thing with a budgie in it [mirror]. This is my drinking water.
    The Blue Birds, they got their own room. They been in it for two and a half years, since I took them home from the pet store.
    I don't go into The Blue Birds' room for much, I don't really commune with them, visit,that sort of thing. They are wild birds. They don't mind people, really, but they would rather be left alone in their room.
    In their, in their room, The Blue Birds whistle, eat, play and fight. Blissfully unaware of a wider world, not smart at all.
    I have lived with The Blue Birds for a while and haven't really grown attached to them as characters, I just kind of like their songs and I like it when they enjoy themselves, which they do.

    Yesterday, I came home from work. I said hi to my housepets.
    I took my shoes off at the door, let cat out, went to the can to have a crap and a cigarette. After I finished my crap and my cigarette I went out to check on all my pet's foods and water.
    I went first to The Blue Birds' aviary, their cage, their room, whatever ya want to call it. I went to check their food and water.

    Wait, see the paragraph above? Uh, I still had my fuckin shoes on. Wait, I thought I took my shoes off and let the cat out. No, wait. A wrong memory. I get those sometimes.

    And,as I am bent over to get the food and water dishes for The Blue Birds, I see a passing shadow, like doom, sort of, well. It wasn't a shadow, it was a cat sortying.
    That cat, Shopcat is his name, he went by me as if I weren't there, he clicked his jaws and was going "E e e e e." Not "Ee ee ee ee ee" but "E e e e e" Real short, clipped cat words, what they say when they gonna kill, "E e e e e." He was seriously purposeful, mudreous intent, and couldn't give a fuck about me except that I was an obstruction to move quickly around.
    I went to interrupt his mission, trie to stop him, but I was all going in slow fuckin motion, like a fuckin movie or one of those dreams you have, the slow motion ones? Yeah;
    But in the time I took to drop the seeds and the water, Shopcat had disturbed the birds, got them to panic and whizz all over, leapt into the air and caught one of em, turned around and went out the door, over to the furnace room and through the hole in the floor. In his jaws, Shopcat had contents
    1) A Blue Bird
    2) A smile
    Yes, there was a smile. He had that bird tucked in there good, like he had done this all before. He had the fuckin wings even, clamped in his jaws. There was The Blue Bird in there, clamped in the jaws of Shopcat and wings securely in place, trapped. The Blue Bird was screaming, "Ni ni ni ni ni click click click, ni ni ni ni."
    And, seeing as it is the only thing The Blue Bird can say, what he says all day, the words, "Ni ni ni ni, click click click, ni ni ni ni," mean everything, they are catchwords really. They mean,
    I am happy.
    I am angry.
    I am sleepy.
    Move over.
    Look! There is another budgie there, in the hard thing!
    or, in this case, The Blue Bird was sayin

    I AM BEING KILLED HERE! HELP!

    I listened as Shopcat and the The Blue Bird had a little visit, got aquainted, down there, beneath the furnace room, under the furnace room, down in the dirt space, under my floors, I listened as The Blue Bird was being killed, for about five minutes, by Shopcat, the smiling cat. Yes he was smiling, down their, under my place, as he tortured and killed The Blue Bird.
    And The Blue Bird pleaded "Ni ni ni ni, click click clcik, ni ni ni ni, " as he was dispatched. Slowly.

    The Other Blue Bird, there in his room, aviary, whatever, could hear his mate being killed and screaming, pleading, "Ni ni ni ni, click click clcik, ni ni ni ni," and he was merrily answering back, like he always had, when The Blue Birds sang together.

    And this, of course, was the last time.

    Shopcat hung out, under the place, under the furnace room, after the sounds of birdsong faded. I suppose he was crunching down my budgie.

    When he came back, after his snack, he begged me for some water, as his dish was empty. I was gonna replace his water right after replacing The Blue Bird's water, but I never got around to it because I was so distracted. And the cat need some fresh,cool water to wash down the budgie he just ate.

    Fuck.
     
  2. looseleaf

    looseleaf Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jan 11, 2006
    Messages:
    5,028
    Well Biles;

    Cats must do what cats do and birds do what birds do...nature of the beasts.

    Now as for singing I'll bet those two birds were not male and female but most likely two males or two females.

    If they were both singing odds are that they were both of the same sex and most of their songs were either trying to attract a bird of the opposit sex or trying to ward-off any other birds from their territory.


    One more thought: when I was a little kid maybe 8 years old, one day I'm at a friend's house and her grandmother is there in the kitchen siinging.

    She's singing a really nice song in some strange language..my friend's grandmother had come from "the old country" we didn't ask where or why as in those days there were a lot of folks coming from "the old country" due to WW2 and/or "the cold war" in those days of "duck and cover".... so only her grandmother came, no cousins, no grandfather, no aunts or uncles...and no one asked why....

    So she is singing away in this lovely voice and I'm just standing around waiting for my friend to get a toy or crayons or a ball or a book, she liked to read to me even though we both knew how to read, I liked to hear her read aloud because of her accent. She did not speak American English and I was still learning about accents....

    So any case I thought I'd start some conversation with Grandmother as it seemed my friend was taking too long and since I was also from "the old country" too, not understanding that her "old country" was not the same as my "old country" maybe I should be more friendly like.

    "Is today a special day?" I asked. "Someone's birthday?"

    "No", she responded not even looking at me but out the kitchen window as she was singing and washing dishes and she kind of smiled.

    "You are singing such a nice song there must be something special today, no?"

    "No." she smiled again and shook her head, still looking out the window, maybe even with her eyes closed for a second.....

    "You will undertand some day Little Looseleaf, that the bird in the cage does not always sing because it is happy no matter how beautifull the song."

    I was dumbfounded and started reeling back reflecting on all those birds I had seen singing in cages and all the ones in the backyard that had been singing equally beautifull songs and the thought that they may be saying the same things but with utterly different meanings was shocking in a way....
    .... damn... you got me reflecting and remembering way too much now...

    I'll leave it at that....

    Take care, biles and don't take it out on the cat.

    I don't know..but if it's really a wild bird, maybe it might want to take its chances back out in the wild and fly free...????
     
    Last edited: Apr 17, 2007
    2 people like this.
  3. biles

    biles Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jul 10, 2002
    Messages:
    3,898
    Location:
    49deg 11min 35.97sec N, 122deg 51min 57.65min W
    Yeah, The Blue Birds were cocks. I knew it when I got them. A pair is a pair. The Blue Birds were a pair.

    And yeah, Shopcat did exactly as Shopcat was supposed to do, I am not in the least angry with him.

    I am not angry. Or anything.

    The other bird hasn't a brain enough to know what has just took place here, but tomorrow, or the next day, once he notices there is no counterpoint to his song, he will get depressed and go into a life threatening molt.
    Fuck.

    Either I wait to see if he survives and then find him a home with NO CAT, or I wait to see if he survives and then get another budgie or two.

    I don't want to make a happy hunting ground for Shopcat, that isn't why I have birds. And I don't wish them to be hunted. And I don't wish this one survivor to die of heartbreak, which the molt he will surelygo into is a symtom of, it happens to budgies when they lose a mate.

    I shouldn't have a cat and birds in the same place.

    I cannot find a home for this cat, people don't stand in lines to adopt cats. But I can easily find someone to take this budgiehome, except he prolly won't have a room, will be stuck in a little cage, so no, I can't do that.

    A chicken wire purchase is long overdue. Sigh. I am the worst carpenter. Fuck.
     
  4. grobar

    grobar Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Apr 3, 2000
    Messages:
    3,497
    Location:
    Пловдив, Тракия, България
    Thank you, Looseleaf! So beautifuly told! Thank you!


    Every country has its beautiful and pensive legendary image of past in me!

    Now you added the American one.
     
  5. biles

    biles Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jul 10, 2002
    Messages:
    3,898
    Location:
    49deg 11min 35.97sec N, 122deg 51min 57.65min W
    Half my family [my dad's side] had little memory of any "Old Country." Except for my Grandad, who was from SUrrey, in England, somewhere, but when he came here, this WAS ENGLAND. Well, sort of.It was England where people talked like yankees but had a Queen or King, but still talked like yankees and didn't have rotten teeth or Irish Troubles, like the English.

    The other side of the family, my Mom's, they, on hermom's side, were Russian, White Russain, actually. And whenever I asked about The Old Country, "What was itlike there?" "Do the kids there like Ice Hockey?" "Do other families, over there, have nicekitty cats also? Do they have Christmas presents and milk shakes, running shoes and hockey skates?"
    And an old aunt or uncle or a second cousin would say, "SHUSH! No. They are COMMUNIST! Evil. Bad bad bad. NONONO. You do NOT want to go there, promise me you will NEVER, EVER, go there! They will find out who YOU ARE!"
    Who I am?
    WTF.

    Only good things I ever heard about The OldCountry was, well, nothing. Not a word. My Baba used to sing. And she sang like that lady in Looseleaf's story and, no, she could never leave her gilded cage either, she was STUCK there.

    Like Kilgore Trout's Parrot. And Kilgore said staying put in the cage was the smartest thing that parrot ever did as it let himkeep his greatest desire, his dream, which was:
    I WANT OUT OF THIS FUCKIN CAGE!
    But if he got out, what would there be left to desire?
    I want back into my cage?

    My Baba couldn't and didn't look back. Too many of her countrymen had done too many wrongs to her family so she came here, where it was SAFE and no fucking commies hunting anyone to enslave or torture or kill.*

    HAIL CANADA!


    *The "Injuns" had already been mostly killed off by the time baba came over here. And besides, ya hardly noticed them because of the Apartied Laws we have. And besides, my baba and her people weren't Injuns, they looked just like white people. And they were NOT Irish.
     
    Last edited: Apr 17, 2007
  6. Mcloud

    Mcloud Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Apr 11, 2003
    Messages:
    2,445
    Location:
    Ontario, Canada
    lollllllllllllllllllllllllll
    :D