Just under the wire... -- The Lonely Canadian Writer

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Date Posted: 22:03:25 12/30/07 Sun GMT-5
Author: The late Roger
Author Host/IP: ppp484.dsl.ontario.net / 209.159.177.230
Subject: Just under the wire...

HAVEN'T THOUGHT OF A TITLE YET

The arrival of spring hadn't lightened Jerry's mood. He was still steeped in the depression that had befallen him when his father died at Christmas. He was taking his medication, but still not going outside or doing much at all. His therapist was encouraging him to take 'baby steps' towards normality, whatever that was.

"Part of the problem" he told her, "is that this way of being feels normal to me. Why shouldn't I feel down? My dad was a friend as well as a dad." He was old enough that the old father-son relationship had become more of a relationship between adults, but that had ended suddenly in a head on collision.

His father had died on the 24th of December, coming home from the Food Basics. He had gone to pick up ginger and some other items for the carrot and ginger soup Mom was making. He had been hit by a Chrysler 300, driven by a seventy-five-year-old who had unaccountably turned from a side street into the wrong lane, and accelerated into his dad�s Saturn. The air bags had deployed, but the Saturn wasn�t built to protect against such an impact with a much bigger car, and his dad ended up with his chest broken by the steering wheel. The driver of the other car had survived, and his mom was in the process of suing him. Jerry knew they stood to get a lot of money, and he knew that no sum of money could replace his dad.

On the 25th of March, Jerry was sitting in the dining room with a coffee, when he caught a movement at the window. A pair of robins flitted back and forth, landing on the fence that abutted the house just to the right of the window frame. He watched awhile, then went and lay down in the living room. The next day, he saw the outline of a nest in twigs and various materials. �Stupid birds,� he said out loud, �Cat�s going to come and pick you off.�

The nest was finished on the 28th, and by the 30th, Jerry could see three eggs in it when the paler female was briefly off the nest. Jerry could have opened the window and touched them, but he had heard that this would cause the mother to abandon the eggs.

The female was still brooding on the next day, but on the 1st of April, the nest was empty. Jerry was very disappointed, assuming the neighbour�s cat had got the birds. Jerry watched the nest anxiously over the next few days, and about four days later, a pair of eggs was in the nest, under the female. He watched for two hours, whereupon the neighbour�s orange tabby cat appeared on the fence, and began a crouching walk towards the nest, while the male began to dive repeatedly and futilely at the cat. Jerry pulled the window and screen open, and hurled a bran muffin at the cat, hitting it squarely in the face, and shouting �Scat!� The cat reared, and did a twisting dive to the ground on the other side of the fence. Jerry pumped his arm in the air.

Jerry kept watch the rest of the day, constantly prepared to sacrifice another bran muffin to the cause, but the one time the cat appeared, he jumped down as soon as Jerry opened the window. Jerry looked at the nest�s precarious situation. He would have to do something.

He began to think about possible ways to put a cage or box around the nest without trapping the birds in it, or making it impossible for the fledglings to fly out. He watched and thought until he was sure the neighbours had called the cat in for the night.

The next day Jerry was up at the crack of dawn, and watched the nest all morning, while he refined his mental design. Finally he decided on a piece of chicken wire from the garage, about two feet wide and four feet long, with a cut-out to go around the nest, and a six-inch bend at the far end to give it some rigidity. He reasoned that the cat wouldn�t be able to walk on it or around it, and he hoped, wouldn�t be able to walk along the tops of the fence boards because the six inch bend provided a prickly obstacle to the cat getting onto the fence near the nest at all. It took him about half an hour to cut and bend the wire, and staple it to the tops of the fence boards, then he went back to the dining room to watch.

After about half an hour, the cat jumped onto the fence, then began its crouching walk towards the nest, but stopped at the wire, its tail switching dangerously back and forth. It seemed to consider its options. There wasn�t enough purchase or a sure enough landing to make a leap over the wire. The cat tested the wire with its paw, then sat back, its head shaking off the diving attacks of the male robin.

Finally it admitted defeat, and jumped down and trotted away.

Jerry watched the birds for hours each day, and spent time on the Internet learning about the habits of robins. After two weeks, two yellowish-pink hatchlings emerged, and a few days later a third, from an egg the female had laid a few days after the first two.

It occurred to Jerry that during the time he had been closely watching the nest, and even now as he watched the hatchlings grow into black and white fledglings and leave the nest, that he had spend less and less time brooding on his father�s death. Even the death of the youngest chick, and the unceremonious dumping of the body by the mother didn�t dampen his enthusiasm for the birds.

The day after the last fledgling left the nest, he got up, shaved and dressed, then removed the nest and its wire protector. He put the wire and the nest in the garage.

Then he called into the house from the side door, �Mom, I�m going to the corner. Do you want me to bring you back a double-double?� And he turned to face the new day.

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Replies:

Re: Just under the wire... -- DianeG, 12:44:35 12/31/07 Mon GMT-5
- Re: Just under the wire... -- Lori, 15:30:23 12/31/07 Mon GMT-5
- Re: Just under the wire... -- Roger, 10:54:37 01/02/08 Wed GMT-5