Postscript

By J.Z
And so we sat there, all of us, with our eyes turned upwards towards the sky. What else could we do except sit there and look hopefully upwards? Emil, our aged parrot had decided to leave us, and it looked like a departure without any hope of return. Everyone present in this event (for us, Emil’s abrupt decision to leave was truly an event, and a grave event at that), – could probably accurately relate what had happened, step by step, during the last fifteen minutes of the bird’s existence in the cage. But no one could imagine why the bird had decided to fly away.
Emil was an aging, female parrot, but no one ever had the opportunity to see whether she could lay eggs or not, and many others seriously doubted her reproductive capacities. Her wings always had an unpleasant smell, so JJ would squirt a few drops of his Co Co Channel on his wings at least twice a day and in general the bird had an entirely dazed appearance. But these shortcomings did not stop JJ, John Junior and myself from falling in love immediately with this creature at first sight, dirty and squawky, his beak smeared in droppings (you do know that parrots, like the bulk of the breeds of birds also eat their own droppings).
Why did I choose this aging and dirty parrot Emil out of all the brightly coloured and preened canaries, red throats with their sweet warbling?
Thinking back, I find the answer to that question in another one of my events of a long, long time ago, fifteen years ago, when together with BB I spent one year of my life on the Island of Malta. Our house just happened to be opposite a pet bird shop. Every morning when I left home I would look into the shop and see a soft grey coloured parrot which I immediately called “Little Ass”, I ended up buying him and I immediately promoted him to the third member of the family. BB, Little Ass and I would always go out together, we would play with him and hurl swear words at him and this would probably have gone on for as long as possible, if Customs had not stopped us from bringing the parrot into the country on our return.
Why did my two young boys, JJ and John Junior choose the exact same parrot that I chose in the bird’s shop? I have no idea, perhaps it is because they both have my blood, my impulses.
We came home and bought a large and beautiful cage like a Sultan’s Harem, we filled it with thin slices of apple and pieces of lettuce, so much that we had to move the lettuce out of the way to see the parrot, we put tiny troughs in the cage filled with a selection of sun flower and other seeds and water and we would let him out of the cage every afternoon so he could fly around the room.
On day two of being in the family, Emil landed on JJ’s arm and he would perch for hours on end on his back. He would peck his cheeks and the lobe of his left ear. In fact Emil changed a lot of things for us in the family. We began to mellow under her funny, jerky glances; in the somewhat hollow dialogue of the family, terminology began to creep in to our conversations about raising the bird probably; JJ and John Junior established a more regular and friendlier relationship, forgetting the wresting and fighting, the mutual insults (this may have frightened the bird), weekly visits to the vet were added to the family budget and what was even more rewarding-not a single complaint from BB about the increased expenses. But something even more important happened as time went by. JJ who became more and more attached to the bird with each passing day, began to imitate him and there was a surprising resemblance between the two. His cheeks got plumper, his skim became a little lighter and two rosy dimples were formed. Emil and JJ smelt the same and you could see them together everywhere, the bird and the boy, whistling to one another in meaningless phrases of attachment.
But why did he leaveŠand how? Why did he decide to go precisely on the first anniversary of his joining our family. The fact that the bird flew away precisely on this day is more than just a literary discovery. It dawned a day like any other day of the week-my boys said that they had been at home and, as was their habit, they had put the cage out on the balcony so the bird got some fresh air. Nothing abnormal about that! They had heard Emil’s usual cackle out on the balcony, then about five minutes silence. John Junior had run out onto the balcony to see why the bird had fallen silent- but all he saw was the door of the cage wide open and the bird was not inside. It had gone!!
And now, we are all sitting here looking up towards the sky. And old expert advised us to sit and wait, looking up to the sky, leave the cage in an obvious position on the balcony with the door wide open. – There have been cases when pet birds have come home- he tells us. His words actually give us a strong feeling of hope, especially John Junior who still sheds tears over this loss. But JJ, who was more attached to the bird than any of us does not have any strong sentiments of regret. I already told you about his resemblance to the bird, to the extent that when you spoke to him at times he would reply in whistles. But from his mellow and soft glance, void of any real wisdom, I sincerely think I know what has happened. I think JJ himself must have opened the cage door and allowed the parrot to fly away.