It was during
the 1990’s.
My sister
and I were usually home alone during the summer break. Each day before our
mother left for work, she would write a list of daily chores on a yellow legal
pad. My sister, my elder of four years, took the role of chore management. To
this day she will not admit to it, but she would often delegate a few of her
intended chores into my list. An early lesson to 12-year-old DC that shit flows
downhill. Either way, that’s not what this story is about, I just wanted to document
that injustice somewhere. The chores would consist of vacuuming, laundry, dishwashing,
dusting, mowing, etc., or… my least favorite chore… pulling the weeds out of
the brick paver sidewalk that led to our front porch. I’m pretty sure that is
why my sister was outside that strange and peculiar day.
I was inside
the house; probably examining the chore list for clues that my sister had altered
it in her favor. I heard a scream. My sister ran into the house in a panic. She
didn’t wait for me to ask and told me that she had been attacked by a bird. I
looked outside in disbelief. There was nothing out there that I could find. She
insisted that she had been attacked. Curiosity grew the weeds in the brick pavers,
and we went outside to investigate. We lived out in wood, up a forgotten
hollow. The first left past the “middle of nowhere,” then go another mile and
take a right and go a half a mile up the gravel road (or “dirt road” if you’re
from the south.) Oddly enough, as fate
would have it, my family and I moved into the ol’ homeplace many years ago. But
that’s another story.
We walked
outside and turned around to look back in the direction of where my sister
claimed she had been attacked from, and sure enough, a small bird rested on the
gutter. It dove into us, and we dove into the ground to evade the kamikaze bird.
There were no questions anymore. A wild, rabies-infected, angry, devil bird had
roosted on our roof. We were home alone, stewards of our kingdom, and we had to
defend ourselves, and our home.
It hadn’t
occurred to me yet that I never really practiced shooting a slingshot before. In
“The Mask of Zorro,” Anthony Hopkins asks Antonio Banderas if he know how to
use a sword. He answered, “Yes. The pointy end goes into the other man.” How
complicated is it to use a slingshot? “The target goes between the “Y” I thought,
in a perfect Antonio Banderas accent (I may be using some artistic liberty
here.)
I released
the pellet, and it hit the roof nowhere near the bird, only a loud “ding” from
the pellet hitting the roof. A fine waste of courage and bravery with our first
anti-climatic attack. The bird taunted us by remaining in place defiantly. Having
learned from the first shot, we sneaked closer, and I adjusted my aim. I shot
at the bird once more, this time hitting within a few feet of it. The bird
launched at us again and we hit the ground. This time the demon went to the
back of the house. With all the stealth a hell born bird could inspire, we slowly
walked around the house to find the devil again. The bird didn’t see us. It was
perched on part of the roof that was easily visible from an upstairs room. We
decided that we had the chance to flank this demon and attack from behind. We
snuck back into the house.
Inside, we
could see the monster. It couldn’t have been more than 10 feet away. Kim slowly
lifted the window open while I doubled the ammo in my slingshot. I released…
and direct hit, feathers fell as the demon flew off. We had struck the beast,
but we knew this battle wasn’t over.
house. We found the bird on a different section of roof. I was also becoming more confident with my slingshot. We found a safe sniper position and started another attack. From our hidden location I fired multiple times at the monster until it flew to another area of the room. My sister and I would sneak to another safe place and volley pellets again until it flew away. I’m not sure how long these series of attacks went on, but this pattern continued until I ran out of pellets. My remaining ammunition was marbles.
It is a
million miracles that we didn’t break a window while volleying marbles at a roosting
pigeon, but the marbles had an interesting side effect: they bounced off the
roof. Somewhere during our war with the rabies-infected beast, I missed the
bird perfectly. Like a Final Fantasy VII limit breaker, or a fantastic
Dragonball attack where power increasing light surrounded us and my screaming
voice is replaced by a Japanese elderly woman, I pulled by my slingshot and release
the final marble. The marble ricocheted off the roof and shot up the pigeon’s
butt. This ended our battle as the bird flew away into the wood to never be
seen again. We had successfully protected our home from evil. But my adolescent mind couldn’t help but consider…
“Only the
dead have seen the end of war.” - Plato
The record
of this battle gets a little blurry. My sister has a slightly different account
of these events. Our mother returned and we had not finished our chores. We
told our tale of victory. We explained to her what had happened but she didn’t
believe us… until… the phone rang.
Our mother
answered the phone, and we watched as her face transformed. Apparently, our
neighbors had recently acquired a trained pigeon. This pigeon was skilled in
landing on people’s arms. Somehow or another, the pigeon had gotten loose and
couldn’t be found.
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