cacklephony
i think i was privy to some pretty important goings-on last night. as i lay in bed, trying to go to sleep, the details of a heated meeting reached my ears through my breezy open window. birds. birds were talking. perhaps they were plotting the downfall of the odious new york pigeon contingency, a rebel army of rag-tag bird relatives shunned by respectable bird communities everywhere. perhaps it was a meeting of the city’s bird environmentalists, expressing concern on subjects as varied as appropriate waste-disposal facilities and tree-branch conservation projects. or maybe it was the Queens Bird City Council. perhaps, it was a local PTA meeting, where the bird-teachers reminded area parents of the importance of nest safety and at-home enforcement of their flying classes. whatever it was, it was loud.
and as i listened in, a silent observer in a meeting of seemingly tantamount importance and endless discussion, i started to notice some patterns. perhaps the bird-members sat in a circle, and the order of discussion was clockwise in nature. perhaps there was an esoteric seniority system – older birds took the ‘floor’, followed by their younger, sprightlier counterparts. perhaps bird-society is heavily male-chauvinistic, and women-birds haven’t earned the right to vote or engage in community discussions. or perhaps, bird-communities even follow Robert’s Rules of Parliamentary Procedure. isn’t that a nice thought? i wonder what they use for a gavel. maybe a twig?
i started to identify some of the different heated voices. there was the grumpy octegenarian – hoooot hooooot caw caw, he mumbled in response to his birdfellows. there was the shrill, adrianna-huffington woman, you know the one, who always elaborates on her points as if the enemy was breaking down the back door tree. she was always interjecting too, with no respect for order – keeeee kee kee kee! keeeeee kee kee kee!. she was probably an incredibly over-protective mother and always shrill with her husband. i discerned the moderate, calm academic type, who probably wore spectacle-markings around his eyes, and expressed discomfort by becoming incredibly flustered – cawwwwww cawwwwwwww *cough* cawwwwww. him and the shrill mother rarely saw beak to beak.
and in every community gathering, there’s always the loonybird. you know the type, incredibly chattery, always standing up and ruffling her feathers and talking a mile a minute about frivolous nonsense while her birdfellows roll their beady eyes at each other and cluck their beaks. there she went last night – meep meep meep peeeeeeeep! meep meep! – and i could almost hear the mocking silence from the bird-gatherings. you could tell some of them used her chatterboxing to mentally take stock of their pantries and plan their hunting routes for the following morning. who was the somber, lawyer-type that managed to silence the rowdy feathered crowds with his long trilling words, and what was he expounding on? did he command such respect in the bird-community, or did they simply not understand all the college-educated words he’d learned when perched at the most prestigious branch in the country – Harvard?
what were they discussing, i wondered, with such heated passions? was it a secret society to promote the annihilation of the pigeon community, a sort of aviary ethnic cleansing? perhaps. so late at night, for birds to be convening and discussing, let me to believe there was ill-intent afoot. and seriously. what did they use as a gavel?
but alas. my illtrained ears were useless at fully understanding the purpose of such a strange and varied gathering. i contented myself with silently mocking the chatterbox and wondering if the birds knew i’d been eavesdropping. and should i warn the pigeons?

Advertisement