Wings of Fate

Trigger warning: animal cruelty

We all know that one moment where the brain just knows and the heart is prepared that the earth could burst and the sky could fall, yes the omen in question is bizarre and vague, but which of us is not a pawn of destiny? Can you confidently tell me, you’ve never screwed up before?

In my case, the sky was stiller and clearer than ideal so I knew the bird wouldn’t die of a thunderstorm for a fact and the earth was about as active on humanity’s destruction as is a drunkard babysitter. Yes, the weather was too good for a disastrous day. I only had myself to thank for ruining a simple task. Now, I stare at my prized trampoline like a witch’s potion.

I am called ‘Hope’ but I am more hopeless than a clumsy toad under a mountain of crashing stones right down from a broken mountain top and let me tell you about parents who name their children Grace only have the most free of grace children and those who name their children Ray have the darkest monsters hidden in a pink frock. Also, that drunkard babysitter from my dramatic introduction is not a metaphor and not a simile it is a memory and a stigma to me. Because a fan of tequila, I get drunk and as a carefree bird- it will sound funnier when I tell you what I have done this day to a real bird later- I take chances to flirt with my drink as I am employed, but on a particular job, we ended up marrying before time all on my insistence when I just couldn’t see that pretty chick single and idly lying around on Mr. and Mrs. Wilson’s kitchen table, reserved for the guests.

I wasn’t a guest so I knew it was now or never. One shot became ten and soon an empty bottle tumbled around while smoke enchanted the air grossly and I burped the bitter burps of alcohol and irresponsibility. It was like Gollum itself evaporated on the stove all thanks to pretty Jane Wilson, the shy and immature daughter! Couldn’t she have asked me to join her when I was getting drunk, she could have been captain America and I would have been fine being just America and maybe my belly wouldn’t look like I ate all Americans at any rate if she had done the courtesy? I might have left my bride alone to once again be a maiden and get betrothed to another while my sorrow was pacified by dough and coco powder and replaced with annoyance at some point due to pretty Jane’s idiotic mistakes.

I believe I don’t have to go in the details of how Margaret, half-plastic half-bimbo gagged over-the-top and bent over like Juliet would to a paralyzed Romeo in the smoke and how her husband Andrew cussed like a sailor after acting all high and sophisticated while entering and how the Wilsons were embarrassed and livid because of me. I was fined by the Wilsons, given daggers of gaze in pay and banned from setting foot in their mansion ever again. “What are you crazy?! Never show yourself around again!” I remember Mrs. Wilson say as she pushed me out the door.

My parents are simple, average people, much better than me at things and they gave up the idea that I’d get a part-time job babysitting ever again after Margaret spread the story of my carelessness throughout our residential area like bubonic plague, just painful for one and a laugh for a couple dozen. They pitied me and took me to therapy and told the psychologist that I was always too unlucky with part-time jobs and she suggested I may have workload anxiety or may not do well under pressure, logically more sound than a cursed or careless liability. I should have known better that researchers are slaves of their books and paid to sugar coat the harsh, incurable realities about unlucky people.

The holidays were near, summer vacations to be precisely exact- if a klutz can do that. She told my parents to give me a productive task without benefits and disadvantages or having to be pressed like an office worker in another surrounding at my tender age as it can lead to unnatural and poor behavior. She encouraged something like keeping a pet, feeding some fish etc. My parents didn’t like cats and dogs and thought fish were too lifeless, but mum liked birds and she had a parrot, a green barking creature with wings and a red beak. Even dogs look like mutes before that chap. “Isn’t he lovely?” Mum would often say as he went off in the morning like an ugly alarm clock, alive and yet creepy!

They had planned to go to a charity event for a day without me on the third day of the first week of the vacations, to teach me independence and give me time to look after the parrot, those paupers roaming aimlessly in the street of knowledge didn’t fathom I could screw up feeding and cleaning up for a bird for 24 hours. Well, I didn’t either at first. Mum tied a piece of her red scarf over his claws before leaving and I have to admit, he looked less ugly. She’d be back in a day yet she was so sad and for what? That dumb parrot!

It all happened unintended when the bird escaped at noon unlike me deliberately getting drunk like a fool babysitting a girl and knowing she was well over 11 and sane. This was about a very dumb and chatty bird which didn’t even have a functioning brain and if something would happen to it, it would actually and morally be ENTIRELY my fault. I am not that awful to feed that chap to the local cats simply because it is loud and obnoxious.

Although, I’m sure if it did happen, they would just claw out its vocal cords and not bother bringing this diseased talkative moron to their mouth for fear of becoming just as a compulsive talker as the sour curd.

I named it Shit-pot and completely left it to the wilderness when it began its first barking routine as a two-day-old baby and mom adopted it, because sadly it was my birthday gift from an aunt, and now I call her cursed Vanessa and send her witchcraft items and cult-related news anonymously.

Everyone knows I hate Shit-pot. Mom calls it ‘Prince’, yes the prince of nonsense is all he’ll ever be.

 I don’t know what birds eat and I barely know if what I eat is eaten by other humans and yes, I am kind of stupid. “Food Petra food!” He barked before 7:00 am, I’m Hope, the daughter of Petra thank you very much and need dear sleep.

I begrudgingly went to fill its fat stomach and since Mom had forgotten to tell me what birds eat, I decided to try and feed it an omelet and make it eat its unborn cousin as revenge. I made some for it and took the frying pan outside. Just as I was making my way towards it a very familiar black cat jumped in the middle, I called that cat Butt-face and yes, that is another birthday present from an uncle which Dad has fathered and called it Spike after it kindly bit me three times and I naturally abandoned it, now the uncle who gave it to me is called Moronic Damien.

Butt-face hates me and the feeling is mutual. I tried to shoo it away, but Butt-face wouldn’t have it, he treated me like a murderer and didn’t let me go near the parrot’s cage, nowadays cats are adopting birds. I prepared for a bite but the old pirate was clever and clawed me instead and I accidentally threw the pan over its face, like any living creature, a sizzling metallic surface in scorching heat is brutal and it jumped, hitting its head again to shit-pot’s cage. Now, that should have hurt. I saw that some of the oil had splashed over his face from the impact. Ouch.

I felt bad although Butt-face was to blame.

Butt-face ran away completely sprinting off with a badly injured face and sizzling oil corroding its skin, and as I tried to bandage it and go after it I slipped over the oil that had splashed over the floor earlier and my elbow smacked the already shocked shit-pot’s cage. The bandage stuck to the lock and ripped open the door, my arm went inside and I was stuck in from my hand to my shoulder in shit-pot’s cage and my feet were skating over the oily surface which killed all friction. Shit pot cried and screamed at me as I tried to regain my balance, finally as I tried to pull my arm out and was able to stand still, the cage flew off the hinges and tumbled on the trampoline that my aunt Tammy gifted me on another birthday, gliding off my arm and tearing skin in the process. The cage hopped off like a two year old and flew into the sky and shit-pot cried, trying to fly as the cage clanged down against the floor. My arm had a severe rash and gushing blood as the sides of the cage had torn it, but I didn’t care, I was overwhelmed and sad that shit-pot might fall off and die. The pain was too bad to move and I think I twisted my ankle. I wouldn't be able to move for a good 20 minutes,

I remember that sometimes, Mom encouraged shit-pot to fly. It was doing a horribly bad job though, I saw it coming down like a torn parachute but with a cry, it started flying and I saw it go away like a kite which is lost from the thread, it was free and had no intention of coming back. It learned flying.

Shit-pot went wherever it wanted to go and Butt-face begrudgingly let me bandage it after an hour had gone by. My arm was hurting badly, but I felt bad for Mom and knew her pain would be much worse. I quickly bandaged it and wore a long-sleeve shirt.

My parents came back home, but I was surprised to see a matching red beak over mom’s red dress as she came home crying tears of happiness and dad followed with a coy and happy smile. Right there on her shoulder, sat shit-pot and she cried with happiness. “Oh Hope! My baby can fly and he came flying over my shoulder and talked to all the people at the event. Thank you for teaching him what I never could! You are so thoughtful.” She said and hugged me. I knew Shit-pot, or should I say ‘Prince’ had followed the scent of the cloth from Mom’s scarf and found her. Maybe he is a little bit of a dog after all.

After that day everything changed well, let’s just say I started hating that bird even more because it now flew over my head and cursed at me whenever I was sleeping or studying.

I still don’t know how to take care of birds and my parents have gone with Butt-face to enter him in a beauty pageant for cats, apparently they think that the burn-mark from the oil I spilled over him is some beauty mark and have left Shit-pot for the entirety of the holidays with me so they can prepare that ugly cat for becoming the star of the show.

Every day, this parrot finds new ways to torture me and I have to look after it for 80 days.