Make a Little Birdhouse & Other Stories

Make a Little Birdhouse & Other Stories

Copyright 2013 Randal J Junior

Published by Randal J. Junior at Smashwords

Smashwords Edition License Notes

This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Warning:

Some stories contain adult themes and/or sexually explicit material

- you must be 18+ to purchase this book

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

Prologue

Make a Little Birdhouse

Of Men and Mices (M18+)

Dad’s Black

The Only Gay in the Village

The Ballad of Sir ‘Oogsie’

Two Blind Mice

God is in the TV

Not So Street-Smart (R18+)

Sing a Song of Sixpence (X18+)

When Ruth is Stranger than Richard (X18+)

From Churchyard to Trailer Park

About the Author

Acknowledgements

I would like to acknowledge the pioneers of the modern literary form who pushed ever onward in the search for a voice that could provide a vicarious experience of the world as they imagined it. I would also like to thank the socialist reformers of the past decades who made education available to every Australian regardless of wealth or privilege; and were it not for the patience and persistence of the university teaching faculty, then none of this would have been possible.

I would also like to thank Mark Coker (Smashwords) for freeing us all from the bindings of hardcopy publishing.

Prologue

If the following stories appear to be written by a million monkeys on a million typewriters, then I am sorry, for I have failed. Any omnibus of narrative such as this should bear the author’s thumbprint as an unforgettable reminder of who they are, despite the tacit agreement that the writer will never be present when their work is being read. And if it appears that this section of the ‘book’ is being subverted for the purposes of an experiment in addressing the reader in the second person, then you are surely mistaken.

But you are reading a work of heresy. And if the worms of religious textual interpretation are correct, then your soul is most definitely in peril; the unseen forces of evil may be gathering around you even as we speak, settling in a demonic halo upon your brow and just waiting for the right moment to seize you in a fit of apoplectic rage as you try to tear the scourge from under your skin… Or maybe that’s just that which we call culture being lent to the superstitious belief that makes life so very much more exciting than plague, psalms or pestilence could ever hope to?

By the way, there’s something burning in the kitchen and you know that I know because I am an omniscient narrator with an infallible knowledge of all things past and present. If you have checked to see if the toast is being charred to a crisp then you’ll probably have come to the conclusion that I’m a liar; having discovered that there is no smoke or flame to be found anywhere. But maybe your belief that I was referring to your kitchen was an egocentric assumption?

Perhaps I was referring to the incense burning here in the Bedouin tent I reside in, along with my seven wives and fifteen children? Or perhaps ‘kitchen’ was intended as a metaphorical reference to the double-pronged attack that is necessary for the process of narrative to take place, which involves both a lucid communication of ideas and a desire to interpret those ideas? And perhaps that is the nature of truth; that our varied perceptions of reality can only be shared and compared, and the exact nature of things will ever and always escape the conclusive agreement of both observers?

Monkeys or no, art is as nothing if it fails to deconstruct the apparatus of normality, as it will inevitably do so with both content and form but not necessarily form over content…

Jack and Jill went up the hill but pale was the pilgrim’s daughter.

Make a Little Birdhouse

She could see the wreckage of her house from here, somewhat obscured by the branches surrounding it but quite unmistakable none-the-less.

‘We all got caught unawares by the storm, Ting, but I’m afraid that fixing your house is the least of our worries right now…’ says Mrs Blumstout, as she pours her tenant a cup of hot dandelion tea.

‘But all I need is some help collecting twigs and the loan of a few spinning spiders and I can do the rest of it myself… most of it anyway.’ In the corner of the room, Mr Blumstout is studying the latest portents of doom in the ‘Chronicle’, puffing away on his pipe and absent-mindedly tapping on the key-screen beside him, but he feels somewhat obliged to enter the conversation from the comfort of his mahogany chair.

‘But isn’t that the cause of the problem Ting? You can’t just keep building with sticks and leaves, sooner or later you’re going to have to come down out of your tree and build something solid… like this…’ he says, reaching out to tap the floor with his walking-stick.

‘But I like my tree Mr Blumstout. And I’m ever so grateful for…’

‘Do drink your tea dear, I’ve got ever so much to do today and I just can’t seem to get started with all of this distraction,’ says Mrs Blumstout, ‘…now where was I?’

Ting sips her tea fearfully; watching Mrs Blumstout as she begins to whirl about the kitchen, faster and faster until the vortex of her leisure-suit sets the dishes to shaking on the sink and the litany of the Blumstout’s domestic concerns begin to spout from the whirlwind before her; ‘…laundry, linen and dust in the parlour… walk the dogs, water the garden and weed the Marigolds… polish the cups, pick the petunias, pay the mortgage…’

‘You’ll just have to go out and get a job young lady.’

‘But I’ve got a job Mr Blumstout! Why, today I have some young bees to train… I have to open the new flowers and sprinkle the dew-drops…’

‘Not anymore you don’t. We’ll get Jim Bob to do it when he comes to mow the lawn. It only costs an extra three biscuit-crumbs and we get five percent off our refrigerator insurance… it’s the only sensible thing to do.’

And with that she was out of a job.

* * *

‘What do you think of the new girl?’

‘Well… I heard she’s got wings.’

‘Really?! You mean she’s a pixie?’

‘Well it’s not for me to say really, but I reckon she only got the job because the boss is sweet on her.’

‘Billy? But isn’t he married….? And what’s a pixie doing here at the factory?’

‘She works late. Sweeping and tidying the truncator…’

* * *

Ting was struggling to adjust to life in the city. She had found a place to rent but she only just made enough biscuit-crumbs to pay for it and her job at the factory was a terrible shock; she missed the flowers and her little house in the tree, but she knew if she worked hard then she would get a better job and more biscuit-crumbs, maybe then she’d be able to move to the top of the staircase; where the air was clean and there was nothing but blue-sky, as far as the eye could see. But she was already late and the lock on her door was being obstinate.

‘Hello!’

She jumps at the sound of the stranger’s voice.

‘Who are you?’

‘I’m Petey... what’s your name?’

‘I’m Ting.’

‘Pleased to meet you Ting!’ Ting reaches up to shake the tiny hand that the flying pixie is holding out to her. He’s beautiful. His eyes sparkle and his lips are curved in a smile that seems to have neither an ending nor a beginning. ‘Do you want to come frog-hopping on the roof?’

‘But… you mean flying?’

‘Yeah!’

‘But… I’m on my way to work. And I don’t fly much. Not anymore…’

‘You don’t? Why not?’

‘I… I’m trying to get to the top of the staircase.’

‘You are? Why? I mean… Why don’t you just…?’

‘I lost my job and now I don’t have anywhere to live but here…’ Ting says, gesturing at the door and the key that refuses to turn in the lock.

‘Oh.’

‘Anyway, I have to get to work, I’m late already…’ and with that she trudges away down the hall.

‘Hey! Ah…’

She stops, turning to listen. He points with some embarrassment at her coat behind her. Her wings are showing.

‘Oh. Thanks…’ She tucks them into the drab grey uniform of the factory worker and turns away.

At the end of the day, Ting is waiting for the bus outside the factory. It’s cold, wet and miserable and she still has an hour to wait after missing the first bus. A shiny red car pulls up beside her; sounding like a cat purring on the doorstep. The passenger window winds down and the driver leans across to talk