The Mockingbird | Previous Challenge Entry

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TITLE: The Mockingbird | Previous Challenge Entry
By Nancy Higginson
05/07/09
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What in the world is that noise? I thought as I sat at my computer. As I walked into the living room the noise became shriller. Then I spied both my cats sitting just inside the screen door, their tails twitching like they had minds of their own. As I stepped around the furniture to get a clearer look the noise sounded again and I saw a mockingbird just outside the screen door mercilessly teasing my cats. I stood amazed watching his acts of daring. He would do his springy little hop across the front porch, that cats’ eyes followed him. He would hop closer and closer to the screen, nothing moved on the cats but their ever twitching tails. Then he would verbally taunt them, those shrill noises I had heard from my desk. My cats are strictly inside cats, the outside world is a rare experience. But here, a big piece of the outside world was teasing and tormenting them. Once more the mockingbird began to chatter, no more than a foot from the screen. WHAM My Siamese had reached the end of his patience and executed a vertical leap to hang from the top of the screen door. Off flew the mockingbird leaving my cats fussing and watching for his return.

Every day, when I get home from work this comedy repeats itself. I leave the front door open when I come in and the cats take up their watch. Within the hour the mockingbird arrives and the games begin anew. Does he know he is safe outside that door? Do the cats know, no matter how high they leap, they will remain inside? Until this morning, I thought for sure the mockingbird knew he was safe from harm and that was what made him so bold in his taunts. Yet as I left for work I noticed the mockingbird had someone else as his target. Here was this fragile bird diving at my neighbor’s full grown pit bull! Chattering and shrilling he would dive right for the ears. The next dive would be for the tail as the dog ran for cover of his own front porch. Such bravery, or was it stupidity, that mockingbird possesses.

As I type this entry, the noises begin from the front porch yet again. I have been home for forty five minutes and already the afternoon’s fun has begun. The mockingbird outside, my cats inside. Each keeping the other, and me, entertained.

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