My first magpie is Mag 29

[This work of fiction is my foray in joining the creative writing community of MAGPIE TALES. 
I am grateful for the opportunity.]

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The last fight I had with Mom was about the hummingbird feeder in the hickory tree out front. All for show. Typical.

"All they need to attract them is a little red on the feeders. The dye is bad for them," I said for the hundredth time, and she screamed back that she had "heard that a hundred times." Then she said something else that really hurt.

We went a few verbal rounds about the pros and cons of additives in hummingbird nectar when, as she always argued, "it hasn't yet been proven-beyond-any-doubt that it's harmful." But there are lots of things that seem right or look good that actually hurt.

"And it's just totally wrong to spray that poison in the flower beds and on the cobblestones where other birds peck for worms....and for gravel to help digest their food. They eat that crap you spray. Remember the house finches with those creepy head deformities two summers ago? My God, don't you know there are garden products that do the job without the poison?" She's a bird lover, my ass, I thought, as she jerked around to face me, hissing that I'd damn well better not call her "a bird lover in a sarcastic tone."

People pass by this place that I'm saying goodbye to now and they're all: "Wow, what a charming home. Beautiful landscaping....does this place have curb appeal or what?" I've heard them when I'm outside in my favorite spot, sitting on the concrete-and-colored-tile bench beside the moss garden next to the potting shed. No one can see me from the path and when the cottage catches their eye I get to hear all sorts of ideas they have about what kind of perfect home it is.

Onlookers love the little windows and arches cut into the stucco walls, what they can see of them anyway, because most of the windows are covered by close-up shrubbery and trees. They think "cozy" and "charming" but if they only knew the secrets that I've shared with the birds.

Maybe some day I will close my eyes and not be able to even picture the wrought iron porch railing with fancy grill work that always looked like question marks to me, the railing my six-year-old bottom used as a slide long ago. Right now I still see myself there on the hard walkway crying for help. I still see her peering out from one of the small windows, faintly smiling as I "learned a good lesson." My blood on the cobblestones was as red as the concoction she puts out for the hummingbirds. It pooled at first, then found cracks that led away to the curb.

MLydiaM, September, 2010





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