The Birds

Suspense and shock beyond anything you have seen or imagined!

This morning, while Cat and I were in my bedroom, we heard noises downstairs...loud indiscriminate noises, paper rustling....was someone in the house? A local friend told me the night before that there were forty break-ins in Kimberton in one month, including one at his home recently, so my first thought was, oh no, someone just walked in! We went to the top of the stairs to investigate, and an enormous bird, a falcon, flew madly around the foyer. Cat ran down the stairs and jumped in the air, barking and growling. She wanted it! The poor bird slammed itself into windows and walls and then perched for a moment on my sheep painting in the dining room. I was impressed by its size. I understood that this bird was a hunter, and Cat's eyes would not be immune.

Cat, too, is a huntress and had fixed firmly on this creature hanging from the painting on my wall. I feared one of the animals could get hurt (this would not be the first bird to find itself in Cat's jaws), so I closed Cat into an upstairs bedroom. Typical of me, I returned to the foyer and sighed, then sat on the staircase as the falcon's flying mayhem continued above me, and considered how to spend my time. "Dammit. I have other things to do this morning. Fuck."

So I opened the front door, hoping the big bird would fly through it. Instead, it flew into the high foyer window and futilely attempted to fly through that until it became exhausted, eventually hanging from the window's lock by one long talon, its feet above its head, its mouth wide open. Had it died? By repeatedly slamming into walls and windows, had it killed itself? I was horrified. From my perch on the stairs, I watched it for a while and saw that its body heaved gently...breathing...and its eyes scanned the room. I ran back upstairs and went into the bedroom to finish getting dressed. I hoped that by the time I re-emerged, the bird would be gone.

Well, it wasn't. It still hung there upside down, practically motionless. I decided to fetch a long bamboo pole from the garage. I could tap it gently with the pole, and it might come away from the window and fly through the door. On my way to the garage, I passed through the laundry room and saw...another bird! (What the fuck is going on?) This was a small grey bird, sitting on the floor near a pair of shoes. We scared each other, and it flew out of the laundry room and into the family room, frantically seeking escape through the closed windows. I sat on a chair feeling idiotic and annoyed. Surely, if I left the house to go to work, the falcon would eat the little bird...and perhaps that plan is what started all this....but I couldn't deal with the thought of such carnage in my home, so I got a dish towel and, after a while, the little bird became exhausted (it, too, had its mouth open) and let me pick it up and put it outside.

One down, one to go. I turned toward the foyer, hoping the falcon would be gone. I looked up at the window, and it wasn't there. Good. But when I approached the staircase to return upstairs, we stared quietly at each other. It had yellow rings around its eyes. It sat there on a step halfway up the staircase, calmly gazing at me, wondering (as I was) what the fuck was going on this morning. It was beautiful. But it was in my house, so I sternly recommended that it "get the fuck out!" and pointed to the door. And so it did, and I went upstairs to brush my teeth.