Here is my entry for this month’s First Friday, over at Wild Bird On the Fly. First Friday is a fiction writing contest. You should consider a submission, the rules are pretty simple. Simply write a short piece of fiction 500 words or less with a birding theme. The birds can not be anthropomorphized.
THE PRISON SPARROW
Jimmy watched the old man carefully. He was pretty sure that the binoculars that he was using were expensive. He knew just where he could sell them. Perhaps, there would be money in his wallet too; these old geezers don’t seem to like plastic very much. He waited, impatiently, until there was no one else in this part of the park, and then he made his move.
It wasn’t his day, for just as he closed the distance between him and the old man, a couple strolled in, watching him. He found himself standing beside the man, unable to act. To make matters worse the couple sat down!
The old man lowered his binoculars and offered a smile as he nodded hello. If Jimmy had any chance of doing this he had to stall until the couple left. “So uh, you like birds or something?” he stammered. Karl lowered the binoculars again and smiled “I guess you could say that, they saved my life.”
“What?” Jimmy laughed. “Why don’t you sit down? If you want I’ll tell you about it” said Karl. He raised his binoculars again, and said “California Gull” to no one in particular.
“When I was a young man, a little older than you, I got myself in a mess of trouble, ended up in Prison, not too far from here actually.” He was still looking at the gull as he continued “It was a terrible place, I was scared, and angry, and ready to strike out at everyone, including myself.” He lowered one arm revealing some old scars, a lot of old scars.
“In the exercise yard one day I noticed the sparrows, they could come and go as they pleased. There were mostly House Sparrows, but some were different. I found a book in the library and soon I spent all of my time watching them, figuring out which was which. There were gulls too, do you have any idea how many different gulls there are?” He pointed to another bird, “Look at the colour of that gulls feet. See how they are different than the others” Karl gave Jimmy the binoculars.
“Soon I found that I had a reason to live, to do my time and never come back. Time passed a little more quickly and I got moved to a better institution, a farm. See that slimmer one, that’s a tern, a Caspian Tern” Jimmy struggled to find the slimmer bird. “Eventually my time was over. It wasn’t easy, but I found work. Found a good woman too, she used to love birds too. I never went back.”
“Where is the turn?” asked Jimmy. “A little off to the left of the group of gulls” he replied. “Why were you there? In prison?” Karl sighed. “I killed a man I was going to rob.” He got up and walked away.
Jimmy watched him go, and then turned back to birds. Karl was long gone when Jimmy realized he still had the binoculars.
Comments
2 responses
This brief vignette is your best First Friday tale yet, in my humble opinion. I’d place you at the top of the true crime-birding genre.
Thanks Mike