The Hummers of Eeyore

[desperance]

I was actually feeling quite gloomy this morning, as I headed home - but then I saw my first hummingbird of the year (not in my garden, no: posing above the central expressway, just a couple of yards from the bridge I was walking over, and right in my eyeline), and you'd be amazed how much that perked me up.

In other news, I broke down chicken carcases for stock this morning, and tidied pretty much everything away, and left the kitchen - and heard the thump of cat landing on kitchen floor, which always arouses suspicion because, y'know. What was he landing from? And why, exactly...?

So I turned back, and there was Barry with the string that had trussed one of the birds, dangling from his maw like a worm from a bird's beak. Vanishing as I watched.

My mind took no time at all to draw lurid pictures of what that might do inside his gut.

So I pursued him, and he fled me down the arches of the years all through the house, and every time I nearly caught him there was less string visible; and when I finally cornered him - we grovelled, both, on the floor of the closet in my office here - there was barely a nub remaining. And I seized that and yanked, and out came all the string; and I have no idea whether it had been going down his gullet like a worm or if he'd just packed it all neatly between his teeth, but he didn't gag or anything so I guess it's okay.

And don't nobody ask at all what might have happened to the string that trussed the other chicken, 'k? We are totally not thinking about that.