LJ Idol, Week 24: Auguries

[rm]

The birds are back, which means Patty is coming home soon.

In the realm of absurd auguries, despite the habits of the ancient Romans, this is about as silly as it gets. Even for me, who does believe in and live to all sorts of signs and symbols, it really doesn't make much sense.

For one thing, there's no particular past or pattern to base this on; all of Patty's other digs have been in the summer when the birds are there before she leaves, while she's gone and after she comes back. For another, our bird issue is particularly crazy; this isn't about flight patterns.

In fact, despite my affinity for birds, they're sort of our enemy. There's an owl that lives in the tree outside our window and a woodpecker that pecks on the side of our building, and a hell of a lot other other birds that make weird noises -- loud and angry -- that wake us at all hours.

And sometimes the birds stare.

I wake up before Patty most days and sort of murmur at her about stuff in the world, and one day I mentioned that there were starlings on the fire escape looking in at us.

"Nooooo," she said. "Creepy."

So I sat up and scared them and then wrapped myself around her and told her I was protecting her from the birds.

"Good," she said in a little puff of breath. "Thank you, my darling."


Over time, the bird narrative has become weirder; once, we saw sparrows on the street eating the remains of fried chicken. It bothered me, even though people are mammals who eat other mammals and that doesn't make us cannibals, so surely it can be the same for the avian kingdom.

"Cannibal birds," I noted.

"Yuck," Patty said.

And meanwhile, birds kept coming to stare in our window.

"Pervert birds," she said.


One day, she called me into our office. "Honey?" she said, sounding a bit disturbed.

"Yeah?" I hollered as I got up from my desk in our bedroom.

"There's a woodpecker!"

And sure enough, there was one of our many bird enemies, the woodpecker, pecking on our window.

"I think the birds like you," I said, and from there, I made up stories.


You see, the birds in our neighborhood are fundamentalist cultist birds, who believe Patty is their queen, and they come to visit her and watch her and wait to see when she will take up the mantle of fundamentalist cultist bird leadership. And it's my job to protect her.

When the birds wake us up at weird hours, I tell her about their plans, and how I will protect her.

We decided that in Oman on her dig, she'd be safe. The birds there aren't cultist fundamentalist birds, just normal birds, and it would be too hard for our crazy Central Park exile birds to get them a message.

So Patty went to Oman, safe from birds, and winter came here in NYC and the birds that were watching her went away.

But it's spring now, and the birds are back. I watch them hop on the fire escape, still fat from winter, and I think they're cool because I like birds (they're weird), even though I know they are actually secretly and insidiously waiting for the return of their bird queen.

But who can blame them really? So am I.

Comments

[theotoky.livejournal.com]

you kill me.

[wcg.livejournal.com]

Do you know the story about the Roman general and the sacred chickens?

[brewsternorth.livejournal.com]

I think I read that one (in one of those pulptastic ersatz-reference works the Reader's Digest delights in). Sort of the Latin equivalent of "damn the manoeuvres, head straight at 'em!"

[wcg.livejournal.com]

Yeah, kind of. It involves a Roman general who was commanding a naval task force against the Carthagenians, who became quite frustrated when the (sea sick) sacred chickens refused to eat. Since the eating of grain by the sacred chickens was a good omen that Romans normally looked for before battle, the General's subordinates were unwilling to engage until the General took an extraordinary action.

[stardragonca.livejournal.com]

"If they won't eat..."

[wcg.livejournal.com]

Maybe they'll ...

[coyotegoth.livejournal.com]

Or the Capotoline geese?

[wcg.livejournal.com]

That's a whole 'nother story, though an equally interesting one. I don't have any objection to parading geese around on purple pillows, but I do draw the line at crucifying dogs.

[redstapler.livejournal.com]

I've been referring to my flight tomorrow as "being in a metal bird."

[brewsternorth.livejournal.com]

The idea of Patty as a Bird Goddess is so Douglas Adams...

[elionwyr.livejournal.com]

I love this.

[neifile7.livejournal.com]

I love the mood of this -- the day-to-dayness of it, with the magical undertones that you convey in a single sentence or a few lines of dialogue. It's so different from your last few entries, and I hope that readers can appreciate the emotional range you've got going here.

Did you mean to write "it's my job to protector her?"

[rm.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the catch (fixed) and the compliment. I could have written a big thing about timey-wimey this week, but I wasn't feeling up to it or like I wanted to make it available.

[neifile7.livejournal.com]

I'm trying to finish my timey-wimey this week myself. Okay if I send it ahead for an advance peek? I count on you having plenty to argue with.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Sure!

Hey, have you seen Watchmen yet? There's a huge timey-wimey chunk in the middle that is AWESOME.

[(Anonymous)]

Nope, not yet. Too many late nights at work recently, and I'm sleeping half the time at a friend's as is it. But sounds as though it ought to go on my to-do list!

[p-zeitgeist.livejournal.com]

Hmmm. Do you know, I think Patty and I must share some mythological relationship? My local birds do the same things, only they line up in the lilac hedges outside the kitchen to stare in at me. Except for the woodpeckers, which do as all woodpeckers do and hammers outside the bedroom windows.

Except for the one who took up residence in my studio for a few days, that is. I can only guess at how she got in, but it took me days of hanging peanut-butter treats ever closer to an open window to get her out again.

[stardragonca.livejournal.com]

You're the best!

[kessie.livejournal.com]

I really enjoyed this. The magic realism tones blended well with the normal, everyday events.

[baxaphobia.livejournal.com]

This is a fun entry. Even though birds creep me out. It's probably because I really can't see them. The only birds I used to be able to see were pigeons. Ugh!

Just saying...

[argentla.livejournal.com]

http://www.barbiecollector.com/showcase/product.aspx?id=1003848&t=modern

Re: Just saying...

[gement.livejournal.com]

... They're serious. They're actually selling this.

I really need an LJ icon for my jaw hanging open in abject astonishment. Maybe something in a nice David Tennant...

Re: Just saying...

[argentla.livejournal.com]

I have a fairly vivid imagination, but I assure you that I do not have the flavor of derangement that would let me make something like that up. It's legit.

Now, Mattel DOES sell a variety of themed Barbies aimed at collectors, including many licensed tie-ins (Barbie as Batgirl, Barbie as Scarlett O'Hara, et al), but that one is just on beyond zebra.

Re: Just saying...

[tsarina.livejournal.com]

Wow, I have nothing other than this icon to say.

Other than this doll totally needs to be part of some big creepy bird altar now.

[boxsofrain.livejournal.com]

If I was Patti and read that ending, I think I would have felt very giddy.

[angelic-mystic.livejournal.com]

This is great!

[timelady.livejournal.com]

Me personally I believe all birds are related to the Alfred Hitchcock Birds and they're watching us waiting for orders to come down to eat us all. Vulture instincts kicking in. Seriously, I've seen birds circling in the air and picking apart dead things.

Waiting for orders to eat us all.

[stardragonca.livejournal.com]

Well, birds are dinosaurs that learned to fly. And we DID eat all those eggs.

[qthelights.livejournal.com]

you're a little crazy. *g*

the other thing about birds? look like scary little dinosaurs when you look at 'em closely. If they *were* scary little dinosaurs, that would be cool, but they aren't.. so it's just creepy.

[nekosensei.livejournal.com]

Awww...I love owls. What kind of owl is it? I can see barnyard owls being obnoxious because of the loud screech they make. I remember hearing one once, and I thought something was meeting an untimely demise in the wooded area by my apartment. The sound of Great Horned Owls are pretty cool though. They make the traditional "Hoo Hoo" sound.

[thndrstd.livejournal.com]

You are, of course, a wonderful writer and this entry solidifies that in my mind. Throughout this competition, I have seen you open up and take a personal direction in your writing that I personally have found very rewarding. Your entries are a pleasure to read.

[sykii.livejournal.com]

If either of you reads Anansi Boys, you will be even more creeped out.

[alycewilson.livejournal.com]

Charming. I liked the playfulness of this.

[natf.livejournal.com]

I adore this!

[roina-arwen.livejournal.com]

I wonder if the birds would still worship Patty if she committed a cardinal sin?

(ba-dum-dum)

[stardragonca.livejournal.com]

This just so good.

I've had an ambivalent, to say the least, relationship with the local bird life recently, to the point where it affects my inner life, and personal symbolism.

This is just. so. good.

Thank you.

[johnmill79.livejournal.com]

I wonder if they realized it was chicken they were eating?