It was a few weeks before the typical Christmas celebrations when it started. As the sun crept towards the horizon, and the nocturnal animals started to make their presence known throughout the quiet neighbourhood, Jonathan heard some quiet scratching in the attic of his two story house. Earlier in the year, he had had trouble with wild animals which had snuck in to escape the winter chill. He had someone come to fix the various issues that could be used for entry points and the first thing he thought was that he had missed one.
He grumbled to himself as he stood, spilling the cat who had been sleeping quietly on his lap. She stretched and looked at him with a little bit of disappointment before jumping into the spot he had vacated and went straight back to sleep.
He grabbed the torch that was hanging by the front door and headed upstairs. As he turned on the landing to head down the hallway to the attic access panel, the scratching stopped. Jonathan stopped too, listening to see where it would sound like it was coming from when it started again. The guy who had fixed his house last time said that it was very rare for these critters to leave the same way they got in because they were just that dumb. But as he waited, listening, he could not hear anything.
“Ugh,” he said and pulled the hatch open. He climbed the ladder and shone the torch around the mostly empty room, taking particular care to check all the beams and joists in the roof. The scratching he had heard was from a decent sized animal, if he was estimating correctly. Perhaps a possum, or a very lost bird, or another cat. Although the last one was unlikely. If there had been another cat in the house, his own one would be on the case. She did not accept intruders of that sort. She barely accepted other humans.
After spending longer than he had wanted to shining the light into each corner of the attic, he decided that whatever it was that was up there was better at hiding than he was at seeking and he left again, closing the hatch and heading back to the stairs. He paused at the top of the stairs, his hand on the banister, waiting to see if the scratching would come back again. When it didnt, he shrugged and headed back down to the bottom level. His cat was still in the armchair, tail curled around her face. Instead of disturbing her so he could sit down again, he grabbed the plate and glass from his dinner earlier and loaded the dishwasher, setting it to start early in the morning so it would be ready to unload when he woke up.
Then he headed back upstairs and started his nightly routine before heading off to sleep where he dreamed of strange animals and an apathetic cat. Images that were gone as he woke to a new day.
Alicia only used the daily newspaper as a liner for her birds large cage. She would never say it out loud, but there was a joy in her head as her birds did their business all over the faces of the politicians and athletes that she didnt like.
The birds didnt seem to care all that much. They were smart birds. They knew what certain things that Alicia did meant. When they would get food or fresh water. When their cage was going to be cleaned and, to their credit, they got out of the way each time.
They kicked up a fuss when the doorbell sounded, and each time Alicia had to quieten them down before answering. It never did anything, but she thought that if the person on the other side heard her trying, it would make her sound like a better pet owner.
On a rather warm, pleasant Saturday in that weird period between Christmas and New Years, she took a few pages of the paper that had arrived the day before and spread them out on the tray of the bird cage. She expertly tucked the excess away and slid the tray back into the cage where both birds hopped down from their swings to inspect it, and in one case, tear at it a little bit with their beak.
As such, Alicia missed the small article, tucked away under yet another accusation from someone who clearly didnt care where the stones they were tossing landed of corruption, which detailed the fire in a house not too far from hers. The owner blaming animals that had snuck into his attic.
After the cage was cleaned, the birds food and water replenished and the general bird area was neatly presentable again, she headed down the hall of her small house and looked through the other rooms to see which was the next area that needed attention.
Deciding that the book she had been reading for a few days, left open and upside down at the page she had left off was the most pressing issue, she lay down on the bed and managed to make it three pages before she was dozing quietly.
She had no idea how much time had passed when she woke up, but she remembered the image of what she would describe to her friends later as a sleep paralysis demon burned into the back of her head. As she regained full consciousness and made sure her limbs were functioning correctly, she heard the raucous noise of her two birds inside their cage. Before she headed out to see what had upset them, she looked at her watch, carefully placed on the bed table. It had only been twenty minutes. She frowned. The dream she had been having felt like it had been happening for a lot longer than that. She shuffled out of the bedroom and into the hallway, not noticing the puddle of sweat she had been laying in, or the identical one next to her.
She entered the living room to find an unholy mess. Both of her birds had torn up the fresh newspaper she had just put in the tray and it was flying everywhere. They were currently in the process of flinging all the seed and other food out of their little dispensers and she knew that if they could figure out how, they would do the same to the water.
“Hey hey hey,” she said gently as she approached. “Whats wrong with you two?”
The birds cawed and squawked as she spoke but when they saw her come towards them, they calmed down slowly, eventually landing side by side on the railing of the side of the cage facing her.
“Whats the matter?” she said. She was a foot or so away from the cage, and the birds were reaching out with their feet in order to grab onto her fingers, as they did from time to time. She reached out to gently touch the offered feet, but once her finger was in range, one of them, fast as lightning, pecked her hard, gouging out a piece of skin and causing a small splotch of blood to appear.
“Hey!” Alicia shouted, immediately wrapping the injury in her tshirt. “No,” her voice was sharp, but not loud. They had pecked her before, recently even, when a stray cat had got in and they didnt understand that she was trying to get it out and protect them at the same time. She spoke at them as she entered the bathroom and disinfected the wound, wincing at the sting of the ointment, before bandaging it up. She considered herself lucky that she had left the cage closed while she was cleaning.
As she had left the hallway and entered the bathroom, the two animals had started their noise and flapping again and Alicia could hear the little bits of seed being flung around the cage.
“Enough,” she shouted, frustrated with them, sticking her head out of the bathroom and glaring at them. When they didnt stop, she headed back to the living room and checked the front porch, thinking there might have been someone there, or a package had been left. But there was nothing. Just an empty space. She sat down in her chair, well within view of the birds who had stopped their display again and were hanging on the side of the cage, as before, just on the side nearest to her again. Both of them were extending their foot towards her. “Haha, fool me once, kids,” she said, waving her bandaged finger at them.
There is a woman named Jacinta. She lives in a small shack outside a no-name town which itself sits outside a small city that only the people in the surrounding area have heard of. In this shack which sat alongside a small creek, Jacinta lived a quiet, unassuming life. She lived off of the land, respecting the plants and the animals she shared it with. Creatures big and small were often found in and around her home. Sometimes people from the town or even the city came and tried to move them, and her, along, but she was comfortable and happy here. She had no reason to want to leave and so she didnt. And as long as she was there, so were the animals and each of them would protect her and this habitat as best as they could. So anyone who did try to disrespect her or the land was, themselves, moved on. Often rather quickly.
She had woken today, though, in a foul mood. The animals who lived indoors recognised this and were wary of her. This upset her; she loved the animals and wished them to feel comfortable enough in her presence to come out and interact with her regardless of her mood.
But as she sat with her tea, trying her best to enjoy the sunrise, she wondered what had put her in such a bad mood. It was definitely unusual. This space, her associates, they were all curated to ensure her mood was as peaceful and calm and as happy as could be. For as long as she could remember, it had been that way. She had been happy. She had been calm and had enjoyed her peace. What had changed today?
As she thought, an image flashed into her head. She didnt recognise what she saw, but she knew that she had been seeing the same thing for a few weeks now. She looked down at the cat that had entered her door. She didnt recognise it, but it was staring up at her with wide eyes.
“Can I help you?” she asked.
The cat, obviously, said nothing, but headed over to an armchair that was draped with pieces of fabric and curled up on it.
“Sure,” Jacinta shrugged. “Make yourself at home.” As she went back to her tea, she didnt notice the quiet and stillness that had descended upon her corner of the world.