The following morning, after a long, frustrating night of trying to sleep in a bed, Karl Korvid decided to go for a walk.
He had barely made it ten feet down the sidewalk when something brushed against his head, flying low and fast.
“That’s strange,” he said, and kept on walking. It happened again — whap! A feathered wing smacked his ear as it passed. “What is that?” he wondered. The third time, he was almost ready, and saw that his attacker was a mockingbird.
“This is oddly familiar,” he thought. The next thing he knew, another mockingbird joined the assault, soon to be joined by several sparrows, a swallow, and some sort of finch. “This is too much,” said Karl, as he turned and ran back to the sorcerer’s house, a small cloud of birds rising into the air and dive bombing him in turn, one bird after another. A flock of pigeons looked down from a telephone line, bored and expressionless, but did not enter the fray.
“What was that?” blurted Karl as he slammed the door behind himself and began dusting feathers and bird droppings off his long black coat.
“Well,” said the sorcerer, “it’s probably karma.”
“I don’t know what that means,” said Karl. “But how do I stop it?”
“Wear a hat,” said the sorcerer, whose name was Chuck.
“Will that stop it?” asked Karl.
“Probably not,” said the sorcerer, “but it will at least keep the bird shit out of your hair.”
Copyright © 2011 by Dan Whitworth. All rights reserved.