After days, weeks even, of dry hot weather, today we have lights on inside the
house at noon. The air is thick. The smell of this morning’s poached eggs has
not yet dissipated. A thunderstorm in prospect. L. spent the night in a hut
atop Mount Hood. Sensibly, she’s returned home early. For a nap.
Left alone with the cats, and thinking of Schrödinger, I committed haiku:
Cats are, as cats were,
divas; so high, so low, so
long lost in a lick.
Sonsie is a very vocal cat. He usually has much to say about when he wants
food, what he saw when he was outside, how much he is going to enjoy the next
nap. He is particularly vocal when he thinks the breakfast service is slow,
which it often is. L. doesn’t share my policy of feeding the animals first;
cats are her job. Sonsie skats until she scoots and jumps to. This morning,
by contrast, absolute quiet. Sonsie sat politely… butter wouldn’t melt…
angelic face to the fore, which was good tactics; I fed him promptly.
Before I walked up the road to the school to de-bounce the dog, Appenzeller
broke into warning cries, “Mimo’s gone. I’ve lost my only fertile female.”
To this cry there is what movie people call a “backstory.”
When Appenzeller managed a whole night on the perch and woke without crowing,
L. said, “Maybe she’s grown out of it.” One data point does not a pattern
make. Six the next morning…crowing. I rose and let them out and all went
quiet. Took Hamish for a walk, got on with my morning chores. Crowing started
up again. Eventually I went in search. I found find her in front of an open
gate. “That shouldn’t be open. Some fool didn’t close the wotsit.”
People canvasing the neighborhood sometimes mistake the side gate for a front
entrance. I assume one of them hadn’t closed the gate properly. Pecorino was
examining my hands for evidence of a food drop.
“Where’s Mimo?”
“Dunno.”
I started the search outside, imagining a world in which Mimo had gone to join
the chooks eternal. Jeeves and Hamish joined the hunt. When we had quartered
all the ground both outside and inside the perimeter, I checked the usual
nesting spots. Nothing. Hamish and I tried the front yard again, listening
for any slight rustle. Nada. Unless…one final thought…the passage we blocked,
the one beside the air conditioning unit. I made gentle noises as I approached
and lo!
“I’m laying an egg.”
I peered over the barrier.
“Excuuuuuuuse me! A little privacy please.”
I ducked back. “No problem. Glad to know you’re not being eaten by coyotes…
or even domestic dogs.”
“There’s no need to worry about dogs. Hamish never bothers us.”
“Actually he’s rather unusual,” I explained.
“You can say that again. We tell him there’s absolutely no point talking to
squirrels.”
Appenzeller came up. “You can’t reason with thieves.”
“With thieves,” Pecorino echoed.
So when Mimo disappeared again, I went straight to the spot beside the air
conditioning unit, cleared my throat and asked if she was O.K.
“Have you ever delivered an egg?”
“No.”
“Well stop asking stupid questions.”
Someone suggested that should I ever find myself in a world without chickens,
our SAABs might make good characters. My brother-in-law borrowed one recently
and returned, slightly shaken. He asked if *any* of the warning lights was not
lit. “No,” I said, “I think they’re all on, but I take all our cars to the
mechanic on a regular basis and he assures me that it’s just a matter of senile
sensors. Nothing wrong with the parts themselves. My view of cars is that you
should pay to fix anything that might kill you; the rest is frippery. I wash
them from time to time, just to let them know how much they’re loved. No
problem parking them in the worst of neighborhoods; they’re pretty much
theft-proof.
From time to time I attempt to educate chickens about human concerns: racism,
income inequity, how to activate a library.
“People are quite worried about whether we are over-paying our big stars, those
who are good at sport and so on. And then there’s the issue of color.”
“Color?”
“Yes. Appearances.”
“Well,” said Mimo, “it’s an issue for all of us. It’s a very hard thing to be
born white. Might as well paint a target on your chest and kiss the world
goodbye.”
Appenzeller wanted to know more about “big stars.” “Are they compensated for
their bigness?”
Pecorino objected, “Clearly unjust to reward someone simply for being fat.”
Appenzeller had a different view; she thought there might be some merit in the
idea.
Pecorino wondered what “activating” a library might mean.
“It’s an art word,” I explained. “When it happens you get to experience space
differently. I was invited to read in French for forty five minutes. There
were more than forty of us performing. I don’t know how many experienced the
project but those that did said it was interesting. People wandered about Reed
library, hearing how words and subjects interfere and maybe reinforce one
another, like waves?”
The chickens shook their heads. Mimo, “No, no. Don’t like the sound of that.”
“We’re not in favor of cacophony.”
“Too much at stake, you see.”
“We use sound to communicate.”
“What did you wear?”
I smiled. “Silk. It was a hot day.”
“Rain coming,” said Mimo.
“That’ll activate the landscape.”
David Ritchie,
Portland,
Oregon------------------------------------------------------------------
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