Art Pact 36 - Gunther and the Bird (part 2)


(continued from Art Pact 35...)

How it had escaped his attention Gunther was not entirely sure - perhaps the bird had been tucked into the bottom of the cage, where the filigree around the outside was at its most dense and obscuring. Or perhaps the multicoloured background of the shop's window had acted as a sort of reverse camouflage, hiding what was in front of it in a kaleidoscope of random shapes and hues. But now, sat against the plain wooden backdrop provided by a creosoted fence, Gunther could clearly see a medium-sized brown bird, rather drab and unremarkable save for its orange bill and two orange flashes around its eyes. The bird looked back - first with one eye, then with the other. Then it released a piercing shriek, as out of proportion to the size of its body as a whale's call might be coming out of the throat of a mouse.

"Shit!" Gunther said, then clapped his hand over his mouth. Now, I'm not sure that he actually did that. It sounds like an embellishment stolen from the television, to be honest. But it tells you yet another thing about Gunther, and I'm sure that he didn't mean it as a lie, rather as a simple way of emphasising his situation. The bird screamed again, and to Gunther's dismay he heard an angry voice again - the voice of the shopkeeper returning. He had heard the bird's alarm call and recognised it.

Gunther knew that he had to silence the bird, and fast, if he was to remain uncaptured. First he tried the tactic that anyone as unversed in motivating exotic birds, dogs, or small children as Gunther would have tried - he asked it.

"Please be quiet! I'll give you back."

Gunther had no idea what the penalty for bird-napping was, but he was sure that it ranked higher up the scale than petty shoplifting. Part of him badly wanted to ditch the cage and just run for it, but for some reason he could not (perhaps, and this is pure speculation, his plan was not quite as spontaneous as he made it sound - perhaps he had told someone else, possibly even Sally herself, and was as afraid of losing face by surrender as he was of getting caught).

Naturally, the bird did not respond well to requests. It let out another incredible screech, so loud that Gunther was surprised that the french windows were not blown out of the house behind him, indeed so loud that when he related the story to me he assumed that this would give me some context since I must have heard it myself. (I did not). The deafening silence following the bird's call was broken a few seconds later by the words "AHA!" and the sound of a garden gate further along the street being forced open.

"Please," Gunther hissed at the bird. "Please be quiet!"

At this point I should tell you that I have, in the past twenty years, been able to confirm one relevant fact about the story. While avoiding my family on a trip back home I spent a great deal of time in predominantly lesbian bar in the next town over (long story short: I find turning down the advances of women to be far less tedious than turning down those of men). One of the other patrons, who I ended up drinking with, turned out to be the daughter of the pet-shop-owner in question, and when I asked her about the story she confirmed that yes, her father had had a bird like that, and it had been stolen. He'd bought the bird - a Common Myna, she told me - under the mistaken impression that it was the considerably more popular Hill Myna, well-known for its skill in mimicry. He had discovered his mistake too late, and had been trying to sell the "useless bag of feathers" (his words, apparently) for three years, simultaneously trying to train it, but with no success.

"He hated the damn thing," Alice said, swirling the remains of ice-cubes around the bottom of her glass with deft circles of her wrist. "I think if anything he'd probably have been happy to have it stolen - except that he liked money more than he liked peace of mind, and he hadn't had any of the animals insured. Penny-pinching, you see. The myna was money to him, and those big cages weren't exactly cheap either."

What Alice's father did not know was that - although not as talented as their larger cousins - individual Common Mynas are indeed capable of a limited amount of mimicry.

The bird chose exactly this moment to uncover this previously hidden skill.

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