56 Flavours – Ch. 1

Horned Owl

She doesn’t understand how he can spend so much time on the back porch with his 101 Birds of North America book. “Ah, my little Yellow Warbler,” he says, “sunshine of my life.” And how can she argue with that? She doesn’t understand how she always gets stuck with the sensitive types, the dreamers, the gentle professors. She must have a birthmark on her forehead that reads fragile, handle with care. She ordered a sex-swing on line. He hung it outside and sits in it like a hammock, flipping through pages of Sherlock Holmes. He loves mystery novels. Says they’re exotic. “My little Bohemian Waxwing,” he flutters about her while she’s clipping fabric for her ongoing collages. If it weren’t for his gourmet cooking, his smooth chest, and his inheritance, she’d ditch him. His grandfather’s cabin is the perfect place for her to work. To piece her glass mobiles together in the sun while he scans the trees with his outdoorsman binoculars. “Aren’t the males flashier than the females,” she asks, “in the world of birds?” He struts around the porch with his pipe, which he never lights. She watches his arms swing as he talks and wishes he would light it, would light up, would take off.