Here in Dunwich, there are only two seasons; Winter and July. So now in the first few days of winter there is a nostalgic feeling for the summer that was. And we exchange stories about how one day it stopped raining for several hours and light appeared in the sky. And we named that light, “the sun” and we danced around pointing at it and declaring it a miracle. It’s good to celebrate the good times in our lives.
Today Camera Girl was purging the kitchen cabinets of old food stuffs. And it made me sad. There was a whole package of mounds bars that I really like but I forgot to eat any of them because I was on a diet. And now just because of some fake expiration date she’s gonna chuck them. Most unfair.
Back last year before Christmas I told her I wanted some traditional holiday treats that I remembered from my childhood. I said I wanted chestnuts roasted on an open fire (or in the oven). And dried figs. This really annoyed her because she said this was “a stupid idea.” Now she says that a lot about my ideas so I don’t pay attention when she says it. After I whined on about having these things for a while, she rolled her eyes and shrugged her shoulders and added them to her Christmas food list.
On Christmas Eve she handed me a pan of chestnuts and told me to cut Xs in them with a very sharp but poorly designed knife she kept for just such an occasion. And after cutting my thumb several times and her preparing and cooking these delicacies, every last one of them turned out to be rotten. And when I tried one of the figs, I suddenly remembered why they were always left over after Christmas. It’s literally like chewing on vulcanized rubber.
So, today, seven months later these same figs are going to be donated to the flock of turkeys and the murder of crows that Camera Girl attracts to her bird feeding area. Now, I’m no fan of these avian moochers that live off of my hard-earned dollars but even I feel pangs of guilt about what might happen if one of these neo-dinosaurs manages to swallow any of these figs. Besides the obvious risk of bowel obstruction and subsequent agonizing death, there is the very real risk of radical mutation.
Anyone who has watched as many radioactive mutation movies as I have knows what happens when you combine backyard wildlife with atomic energy. And nobody is going to tell me that those figs aren’t some kind of atomic mutation gone terribly wrong. They’re probably a product of Kazakhstan and were the result of fallout being used as insecticide.
Well anyway, I tried to warn her. And when she ignored me, I went outside and spoke directly to the crows. I warned them. More than once. Of course, I didn’t bother with the turkeys. They’re idiots. But the crows are intelligent. I only hope they believed me. Otherwise within a week; or at most two, there will be sixty-foot-tall crows lurching around those bird feeders. And two-hundred-foot-tall turkeys too. And let’s be honest. I’ve always been a little unfriendly toward these flying rats. With the odd pebble chucked now and then and the unkind epithet thrown from time to time I’m not exactly on their nice list if you catch my drift.
Now Camera Girl has nothing to fear. She’s a regular St. Francis of Assisi to the local wildlife and they practically work for her. But me, not so much. I’ve been considering my options. I think my best bet is to make some kind of crow suit. Since they’ll be so big, I can hope that maybe they won’t be able to tell that it’s fake. I think I can imitate the caws and squawks that they make. The only thing is they might not believe that a crow can drive a car. Or cut the lawn. And they may think it’s suspicious that I never fly. But maybe if I make believe that one of my “wings” is broken maybe that will work. The other problem is they may think I’m a hatchling and carry me back to their gigantic nest. Would I be forced to subsist on road kill that they provide me?
So, you can see I live in fear. My only other option is to go out to the bird feeder and eat one of the figs myself and become the Amazing Colossal photographer. It would be a horrible existence. I’d have to turn an old circus tent into a loin cloth and it’s a cinch I’d always be banging my head on bridge overpasses. But I guess it’d be better than to end up eaten by a giant turkey. So that’s my plan.
Of course, I could just do nothing and hope that none of that stuff will happen.
Hmmm.
You know what, never mind.