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Nov. 2nd, 2005 08:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thejunipertreeGetting out of my car this morning in the parking lot of a grocery store, on my way to buy brilliantly purple carnations for Fet Gede, a large black and white bird perched on the handle of a shopping cart and cocked its head at me.
"Umm. Hello." I said, standing all of two feet away from it. What looked for all the world like a magpie bounced from one foot to the other, opened wide its black beak and clicked it furiously at me. I stood there, dumbly blinking, as the bird began to chatter loudly. Looking over my shoulder at it, I continued into the store.
It wasn't there when I came out with flowers and chocolate, though I looked around the parking lot for it.
Later on, lying in the grass at the cemetery with my eyes closed tight against the sun, I heard the chatter again, but when I sat up and looked around, the only birds I could see were a murder of surly-looking young crows some distance away. I drank rum and smoked cigarettes with the shade of my grandfather. I paid my year's debts to the Ghede. I curled my stockinged feet against autumn grass and wished I didn't have to go into work. But, I still didn't see that bird again.
Sliding behind the wheel of my car, as I was on my way out of the graveyard's dim quiet, I felt a fluttering of wings inside my chest and realized where the magpie had gone.
Learn to build your nest. It said to me, over and over again. Learn to build your nest before winter comes.
"Umm. Hello." I said, standing all of two feet away from it. What looked for all the world like a magpie bounced from one foot to the other, opened wide its black beak and clicked it furiously at me. I stood there, dumbly blinking, as the bird began to chatter loudly. Looking over my shoulder at it, I continued into the store.
It wasn't there when I came out with flowers and chocolate, though I looked around the parking lot for it.
Later on, lying in the grass at the cemetery with my eyes closed tight against the sun, I heard the chatter again, but when I sat up and looked around, the only birds I could see were a murder of surly-looking young crows some distance away. I drank rum and smoked cigarettes with the shade of my grandfather. I paid my year's debts to the Ghede. I curled my stockinged feet against autumn grass and wished I didn't have to go into work. But, I still didn't see that bird again.
Sliding behind the wheel of my car, as I was on my way out of the graveyard's dim quiet, I felt a fluttering of wings inside my chest and realized where the magpie had gone.
Learn to build your nest. It said to me, over and over again. Learn to build your nest before winter comes.