Ziggy And Morten

They sat side by side on the park bench in Clapham. Ziggy – the blue parakeet who’d escaped from the zoo – and Morten, who, unbeknownst to him, was in his final hours of life. Morten had begun his life in Denmark, amidst kings and queens and all things royal. But that was many years ago, and now his life was drawing to a close in South London.

Morten sat, deflated on the park bench, looking somewhat disgruntled – though his three-piece suit, albeit musty smelling and rather tattered, harkened back to his Danish days of higher class. He had lit a pipe some 20 minutes back – but now it just sat in his hand on his knee, unmoving, as he punctuated his lament to Ziggy with occasional half-hearted gestures with his other hand.

Ziggy sat patiently and respectfully on the park bench next to Morten and watched the old man as he laid out every story and detail of his life to the somewhat baffled blue parakeet. Ziggy had run away that morning from the Regent’s Park Zoo and had certainly not counted on the free life looking like this. In fact, to be honest, he thought to himself, I feel quite trapped.

The hours rolled on as Morten’s story droned into forever. Ziggy fought back the parakeet yawns as his big eyes remained fixed on his storyteller. Even if he had just breached the authorities in order to escape – he had learned to respect authority in the zoo. Maybe it would just be for an afternoon, he thought, as he remained deceptively attentive looking. He couldn’t fathom the idea of another day on a park bench sat listening to a sad man tell a sad tale. If this was freedom, he was going to fly right back home as soon as Morten declared ‘The End.’

As suddenly as the beginning of the story had been sprung upon him, the story came to an abrupt end. Ziggy had now ceased listening for what must have been at least an hour and a half and had simply acquired a glazed look of devoted attention to his small blue parakeet face. He blinked – staring at the now finally silent Morten, who just sat gazing off before him into the distance of the park.

Ziggy thought perhaps the last part he had heard was something about a dog and leaving him everything in his last will and testament. Ziggy thought it strange and thought he probably had misheard and had in reality just drifted off into his own dreamland as he sat trying to pay attention to the Danish tale.

As Ziggy sat wondering if he’d truly heard this part about the dog or not, he suddenly noticed that Morten had gone. He looked down the park path and saw the old man already a ways off in the distance, slowly yet steadily shuffling along. A stray dog had come alongside the man and Ziggy could vaguely see the man holding out his hand toward the dog and perhaps snapping his fingers softly as he walked. The blue parakeet flicked his head and ruffled his feathers a bit to shake off the sleep he felt was beginning to envelop him. And then flew off.