1 post tagged “claire gebben's journal”

Her house was a zoo--the birds started it. Two little birds in a cage--parakeets, they were--and they sang such pretty songs. There was a bit of mess about the birds--some seed spilling from the cage, the vague smell of molting feathers and droppings when the water dish was bumped. But the music was pleasant enough, and they kept each other company.

One day, it occurred to Miss Claudine that her parakeets were getting awfully tired of the indoor, stale air, so she tripped outside with the chirping cage and set it on the deck in the sunshine.

"A happy outing for you," she said smugly, beaming in at their frail little bodies, peering closely since she was quite near-sighted.

Miss Claudine then stepped inside to brew a cup of tea, returning to the deck to share it with her songbirds, sitting out with them in the faint sun of springtime, leaves just budding on the maples and hickories, a promise of floral scents on the breeze. Then she thought to air her bedding and bustled back inside. Half an hour later, humming busily to herself, she returned with an armload of pillows and the duvet, piling the great bundle of material on the deck chair.

As she untangled the duvet to shake it out, Miss Claudine noticed how quiet it was. No bird song, no warbles or cheeps. She squinted at the cage to reassure herself, but found it empty. She set the duvet back down and moved in closer, examining the door, still latched. Snowy green feathers were sprinkled about the table and the deck, for some swift, winged predator--an owl? a falcon? she never would know--had made a tasty teatime treat of her little parakeets.

It was then that Miss Claudine bought the fish. The tank burbled and hummed happily on the counter, the black-and-white and coral-colored fish waving their fins in liquid suspense. Miss Claudine never had a husband, or children, but the fish seemed to do quite nicely. The second batch, that is. The first fish she put in the tank languished in ever murkier water ...

[A writing group exercise just after reading Alexander McCall Smith's 44 Scotland Street ...]