"The plot thickens"

My mother died suddenly. She was a fifty-year-old woman suffering from dementia and I was taking care of her for the past couple of years or so. I imagined at that time that this duty will be my fate for most of my remaining days but then, suddenly, a heart attack took her away. It was a dark day for me. My heart was filled with sorrow but somewhere in the back of my mind, there was a strange sense of relief. I know, it is very inhuman, but I cannot help but admit it. It was not easy to take care of her, and also of the large house that belonged to our family for generations. There was plenty to do; cooking, cleaning, taking care of my beloved mother but the worst of it all was...

"The plot thickens," I've been hearing over and over again. A creaking, ugly voice came from the room she used to live in.

You see, my mother owned a parrot. Pretty, exotic and expensive. Unfortunately for us, the parrot had the great gift to learn phrases that were repeated to it persistently enough. My mother was a great fan of the TV series about criminal investigations called "The unhinged criminals" talking about some minor outlaws and their deeds. It was quite the boring one too, to be honest, but it was the only show that my mother was willing to watch. The host of the TV show was a young man with blonde hair and a face that expressed a million emotions at once. He had this saying, you see, a phrase he would repeat in every episode, something that he would say, always whenever the story he was portraying was getting more and more complicated...

"The plot thickens," the voice confirmed, as if in response to my thoughts. My mother fell in love with this expression and her deteriorated mind clung to it as if it was the greatest, most clever phrase that she had ever heard. "The plot thickens" she kept on saying dozens of times a day, for no particular reason, and the parrot listened carefully. Listened and learned.

I hated that TV show. I hated this blonde mind-oyster too. But most importantly, I hated this phrase most dearly. It is so stupid, just like all idioms are. Nobody ever uses them, nobody I know or ever knew. We all learn them at school and see them in books and listen to them uttered by actors, but not a single true person that ever lived was using phrases like that. Except for my mother, of course.

I've heard it so many times that it started to drive me quite insane. I caught myself leaving the house for as long as my duties would allow me to, only to stay away from the terrifying duo of my mentally sick mother and her parrot, all repeating on and on this stupid phrase of that idiotic blonde host.

"The plot thickens," the voice ejaculated again. The world forced me to say goodbye to my lovely mother but the cruel fate left me with her insanity in the form of the parrot. No specific instructions were given to me by my mother. She was sick, unable to think and express herself rationally, but I knew that she would want me to care for it the best I could, for she loved that bird dearly. That's why I tried, I really, really tried.

"Beautiful day," I whispered to the bird gently, "It's a very beautiful day". I kept on talking to it, repeating just this one phrase, hoping, that it will forget the irritating words and replace them with new ones. Quite suiting as well, for living in northern Scotland meant that most days the weather was quite unfavourable. Having someone or something telling you otherwise might have been quite uplifting, you see, like affirmations are supposed to work but...

"The plot thickens," it kept on saying. Weeks, I do not exaggerate, weeks have passed and nothing! It did not even attempt to repeat my beautiful phrase. Oh no, it did not like this one. This evil bird, the very spawn of hell, did like only these stupid, worthless, meaningless words it learned and it bathed in for such a long time of living by my mother's side.

I was truly driven insane by this monster, overdosing on certain medications that were supposed to calm me and made me feel at peace again. They did not work though, they did not at all, for all that I felt was everything that peace is not. I knew that things needed to be taken care of for me to survive that everlasting madness that grew inside me ever so horribly.

I found this bird collector, you see, living somewhere in Edinburgh. Animal lover, one of those strange ones. I called him, and told him about the bird; the poor lad could not believe I simply wanted to give the parrot away for free. More than that, I would even drive down to the capital just to get rid of it.

"The plot thickens," kept playing on repeat as I was driving down but I did my best to withstand those curses as greatly as I could. We did arrive, finally, and the parrot and I parted ways. On my way back I did not have the radio on. I listened to the beautiful sound of silence. For the first time since I remembered, I smiled to myself.

Quite obviously that was not the end. Oh no, that could not have been the end of my pain.

A few days passed. I was in my mother's old room at the time, doing some regular cleaning and packing up her old belongings that I planned to get rid of, when I heard again this awful, wretched sound.

"The plot thickens, the plot thickens," twice as if to compensate for the silence I've been experiencing so far. Angry but, at the same time, deeply surprised I got up and took a look at the windowsill. There it was, a terrific feathered beast that flew right through an opened window.

I did not hesitate. Immediately I found my phone and called up the collector.

"Oh, did it really come back all the way to you? That's so fascinating! It is quite a distance, you know, and it is extremely unusual and unorthodox for a bird like that to do such a thing! It truly seems to me that the fate of yours and the bird are, indeed, tied."

I tried, I truly tried, to convince this foul collector to take the bird back, but he refused. He truly believed that the parrot will always escape and come back to me no matter what.

I hung up on him, never to speak with him again. He clearly kept the bird's side, I knew that deeply in my heart; both of them simply conspired of turning me so mad! Sitting in my mother's old chair, looking at the void-filled eyes of the parrot, my mind was boiling all over.

"The plot thickens," it reaffirmed to me that my misery-filled life did not end yet. And as long as it will breathe it will always come back, it will always keep on torturing my soul.

And that gave me an idea.

I would be lying if I said that it came to me easily, but I took the fate of my poor spirit into my own hands. I did so quite literally to be radically honest. I used my hands to silence the bird forever. I used them so that it will never come back; neither this foul beast nor the voice of the devil that found its home in the animal's throat.

I buried it in our garden. Dug up a shallow grave, just deep enough for it to fit, and I came back home immediately.

After coming back, I did not do any house chores anymore. I was exhausted. Somehow, I was not happy nor at peace, sitting in my mother's old chair, listening to the wind. I closed my eyes and I tried to embrace the peace that I guaranteed myself with my murderous act. As I took a deep breath, the impossible happened.

"The plot thickens," I've heard. So loudly, so close to me, as if the bird came back to life and sat on my arm, screaming right into my ear. I sprang up and there I was standing: all alone in an empty room. My heart was racing, and my breath followed.

"The plot thickens," once again. It was not there, in the other room, perhaps? I ran there, I checked every corner but it was nowhere to be found. At that point, I truly panicked.

"The plot thickens."

"I will find you," I whispered to myself and I followed the voice, knowing for sure that, in the end, I would catch up with that foul beast and then it would meet its true end.

"The plot thickens," once again and off I went. This time to the bathroom.

To the bathroom...

It was there that I realised the horrible, monstrous truth. It was there where the plot, indeed, thickened.

"The plot thickens," I heard and I found the source of the voice. It was there, in the bathroom, just above the sink. The silver coated clear image of my face, with the lips moving without my will present.

"The plot thickens," I heard my own voice being not my own anymore, but the voice of the parrot instead. It was all this time the voice of that parrot.

"The plot thickens," once again, and I covered my mouth in fear knowing that the insanity of my beloved mother did not die either with her or with the bird. I understood that to put the ultimate end to this, I was the last piece on the board that needed to be taken care of.

"The plot thickens," I said and grabbed the rope.