Valley of the Trolley Dollies

I know: I’ve been a bit ‘off’ with my posting lately. No fiction last Friday. Days pass with nothing. Been busy, you see. Been a little stressed too with a medical issue that worried me. Could have been serious, but turned out to be nothing.

Had a really great weekend - sorted out loads of stuff that’s been hanging around in the back of my mind (sounds saaad, but tidying up the kitchen after Christmas, getting rid of some paperwork, finding a home for some of our Christmas Pressies - not to mention some of our Wedding Pressies - and so on), spoke to my parents, and had a lovely long conversation with Whit in NY (haven’t heard from her in ages), watched some TV and listened to a whole series of ‘Round The Horne’ (D got me the entire collection in a huge box set for Chrimbo).

(Finally) Hung some artwork we bought a year ago, and it looks lovely.

Was standing in the kitchen on Saturday when I heard the flapping of wings, and something Black shot past the very edge of my field of vision.

I turned around; nothing there. I go back to washing the never-used Martini glasses, and there it is again: A whooshflap, a rush of air cross the back of my neck, and something black - the beating of black wings. Carefully, I place the Martini Glass on the counter, and stand, frozen for a moment, as my heart begins to speed up.

After the recent health scare, of course, only three words are running through my head: Angel. Of. Death.

You thought you’d escaped, and here she’s come for you.

Slowly, I turn, at one point the low sun shining right into my eyes and blinding me. At that exact moment, from somewhere in the house comes the sound of a gong being rung. “Don’t ask for whom the bell tolls…”

I turn, the sun hitting the back of my head, and face into the brightly lit kitchen, to see…

Nothing.

But there was something there, I’m sure of it. And what was that noise? Where did it come from?

I look into the dining room. Lying on the floor is a picture in a frame. A picture that’s normally firmly placed on a shelf. There’s no way it just fell of. My eyes move - attracted by an almost imperceptible movement, and a scream like a hysterical six year old girl pushes out of me. It’s there, sitting atop the curtain pole, and staring at me with a beady black eye: not the Angel of death, but a starling that had fallen down the chimney and was probably more scared than I was.

Still, it took a real effort to supress the urge to run shrieking from the house, calmly close the door, and ask D to get rid of our visitor.

God help me when I see my first Rat!

Today - trip to the specialist for confirmation that the medical stuff is all resolved and the Angel won’t be troubling me for a while. Then on to LifeClub. Wonder if we’ll be working on the section entitled: “It’s a f*ckin’ bird: Why you need to chill a little”

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 23rd, 2007 at 10:12 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.