Of Poxy Portents April 18, 2009
Posted by Jen in : Journal , trackbackOh. And Bloody Hell. And Eeeeeeeeeek. I think I’ve been voodoo’d. Freak-outified. Oh. My. God.
You know, don’t you, that I am something of a closet hippy? And I believe in all that stuff involving signs and portents and other peculiar claptrap. Well. I got up this morning. I often do. That’s not it. The ‘it’ was outside my bedroom window when I opened the curtains. I just didn’t notice until I’d clambered back into bed with my tea and laptop and an urge to write my novel/ECA. I tried to concentrate before becoming carried away with the potential funky theory that the opposite of astral projection might be astral attraction. I wondered whether that was a concept my scrummy hippy character, Willow, would believe in. So I wasn’t just procrastinating, it was research. See? Anyway. I thought I’d better check the sky for rainbows and… and… there it was. A dead, splayed sparrow dangling from the eaves outside my bedroom window. Dangling from what, I’ve no idea. It just seems suspended there, wings out as if on a cross. But upside down. No hint of a smile on its grim little beak, its glassy eyes lacking the surprise one would expect from a suspended splayed sparrow.
What can it mean? Has I been hexed? If I venture through the portal to the outside world (yeah, ok, the front door) will it drop on my head? Will I then be double-doomed? Perhaps someone put it there? But how? I suppose the power of the voodoo has no rules about long arms for put-uppingness of scary signs. Or maybe it was catapulted there? By someone mean who wants me to write a story about them and their ‘fowl’ behaviour instead of Willow and her comic karmic beliefs?
What can it all mean? Answers on a gruesome, blood splatted postcard if you please…
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Relax. It is just a kestral air-drying its version of ham. And, by the way, in terms of coincidence, the daughter of a friend – another hippy sort of woman – is called Willow. I thought her name odd when first introduced, but Willow is a very cool, young lady, and a cool name.
eeeewww. That’s a little creepy. Best of luck in your de-hexing endeavours. : )
Right we demand a full feature story of the demise of the spread eagled sparrow, I of course need to see pictures. Come fly with me……
Well it’s said that sparrows carry the souls of the dead and it’s bad luck to kill one, but as you didn’t I’m sure everything will be fine. Also, it’s a bad omen for a sparrow to enter the house, but as this one didn’t I’m sure everything will be fine. It’s considered very unlucky to keep a sparrow in a cage, but you didn’t so I’m sure everything will be etc. etc.
In other words, the fact that the sparrow was already dead is a Very Good Thing. (Though not for the sparrow, obviously.)
Hmmm, it doesn’t sound good. And today I can truly empathise, as one of my lovely cats brought in a mouse in the night just so that he could kill it – on my bed. Constant late night disposal of rodent corpses is a little troubling too!
We once stayed in a beautiful holiday cottage where we discovered a very dead bat under one of the pillows and I’m still okay, so don’t fret too much about the omen. You may however want to double check that the sparrow is still there – if not, it was probably just hanging upside down to freak you out and as soon as you looked away, it flew off, sniggering.
Well the boring rationalist in me says that some bird died, in mid-flight, or in a tree, and fell down, cos it was dead, and got caught up in your eaves. These things must happen all the time. Birds dying high up, I mean. Other animals die lower down. Stands to reason.
Then again… maybe there is a portal to another dimention just under your eaves, and this bird was a messenger from that other dimension, sent to fetch you because unbeknownst to you, you have magical powers / status in this other world, and only you can rescue a race of intelligent birds from some evil baddy, who managed to kill this messenger just as it was entering the portal… maybe if you look closely you will see a message tied to its foot?
By the way… Hello! Thankyou for commenting on my blog. You are my first commenter – all very exciting.
PS Love that cartoon. Very funny.
Is the sparrow scenario already in your little notebook of ideas for future writing? No one should suffer the scare of a spread eagled sparrow outside their window without at least trying to benefit from it.
Loth, you cracked me up with the sniggering. Thanks for that.
Jen – euch. No other word for it.
DOT – Air-dried sparrow? Hmmm. It’ll never catch on. You know a real-life Willow? Wow, that’s really cool. I rather love the name. I’m sure I’d have had a different life if I’d been called Willow instead of Jen.
tmc – It is creepy in a disconcertingly can’t-stop-looking kind of way. I think ‘eeeeewww’ sums it up beautifully. Hello, by the way.
TF – I did think of sharing pics but, well, some things are just best left to the imagination, no?
Karen – I award to you the Crown of Positivity, oh yes indeed. Dead Sparrow, Happy Jen. Very good. I like your thinking.
Helen – I suspect you have proper killing machines under those purring furry disguises? Not sure I could cope with corpses on the pillow. Eeeeeeeewwww.
Loth – A dead bat under the pillow? A DEAD BAT? UNDER THE PILLOW? Oh. God. That’s proper gross, that is. A sniggering splayed sparrow? Ah, yes, all hexes for us writerly types to be alliterative if nothing else.
Beleaguered – I am most impressed with your death/height ratio wotsit. I think I like the evil baddie potential even more though. My magical powers/status will have to remain a secret for now though. Imagine what the neighbours would say. I think everyone should go and read your blog – I like the way you write. You remind me of someone I know (and like very much) in ‘real life’. So that’s good, innit? (I deduced this with my special powers. They are v useful, no?)
Honeysuckle – Hmmm, I’m not sure where to make use of a spreadeagled sparrow. And that’s a sentence I never thought I’d type!
b – Loth’s v funny, cracked me up too! Yeah. Eeeuurrcch. *Makes retching noises* Now get on with your ECA or I’ll send the birds round with my special powers.
You could invoke the pleasure-pain principle I suppose but it’s tenuous. Have you offended any Mafia underlings who couldn’t quite run to the more traditional scare tactics??
Thank you! Maybe I am the person you know in real life? But that would mean I must know, which I don’t think I do, unless you are in disguise or using those magical powers again. Or maybe I have powers too and don’t know it. Maybe my powers are just below yours in potency, and now that you haven’t responded to the call for arms they’ll be coming to fetch me instead…
Oh hang on, there’s a dead sparrow at my window.
Argh. “must know” should have read “must know you.”
Yuk! Dead birds? I’m not sure I even like live ones (aplogies all bird lovers) They sorta scare me ina Hitchcocky sorta way…..Fx
You put me on your blogroll! That was very sweet of you, thank you. I think I might have to go and visit some other blogs now though, cos so far you’re the only one on my blogroll and I’m beginning to feel like I’m stalking you.
I’ll still stalk you mind, just that I’ll stalk a few others too.
I’m not really stalking you though. Just in case you were worried. Hmmm, this is one of those holes one should stop digging, isn’t it?
The Great High Sparrow says hello by the way, and wants to know when you’re going to go and save them. I did my best, but my magical powers just weren’t strong enough. That evil baddie has a few fewer (a few less? a tad fewer? a smaller number of?) feathers than he did yesterday though. And I nicked his beak. I mean, I put a nick in it. I didn’t steal it. That would just be weird.
Poor bird. Poor you for getting such a fright. Will eating garlic work? Or am I on the wrong track?
When I returned to work the other day, there was a dusty outline of a seagull against the window. Mind you, the way we all felt, it couldn’t have lowered our moods any more.
Dan Brown’s making loads of money out of this sort of thing…
I have heard it said that not even a sparrow falls to earth without God knowing. But this one didn’t fall, did it? I guess that’s why God didn’t notice, and left it to be crucified (upside-down of course; only deities get to be crucified the right way up) at your window.
I’m sorry to say that Debs’ comment made me laugh by evoking a comedy cartoon seagull-flies-into-window image in my head. Maybe sparrows hitting the deck make God laugh and that’s why he pays attention.
There, there, all over now.
What did you do with it? Is it still there?
all those hippy names like Willow and Sky are completely transgender aren’t they? I think t would be quite fun to have a hippy child called Hornbeam or Leylandii or something…
… or Cumulus, or Drizzle…
The power of the voodoo is in the belief of the voodoo-ee. Fling the thing in the garbage, wash yer hands an be done with it. Get back to the astral projection/astral attraction conundrum. I find it fascinating and I want to read the book!
But just to be on the safe side: throw salt on your doorstep (keeps the evils spirits at bay), sprinkle your eaves with holy water (does the same), keep a white candle lighting for 3 weeks (let me know how you manage that one!), and stand the broom upside down – um, no, that one’s to get rid of guests who overstay their welcome!
Unfortunate little sparrow. I know a hippy with a son called Salix – which is the latin name for willow, I believe. Mya x
Tam – I’m always upsetting the scary Mafia types but luckily they are easily brought round with a couple of Jaffa Cakes. So I don’t think it’s that…
Beleaguered – I am a little bit scared of your beak-nicking antics. Have you thought of stringing up some sparrows outside your duff agent’s window? I’ve got one going spare (sparrow, not duff agent, obv)?
Fionnuala – No, I don’t like birds either, or anything that flaps really. Not since I got myself locked in a pitch dark attic, surrounded by seagulls who decided I was there to torture their young. Seagulls are very horrible indeed, believe me.
Debs – How about I stuff the sparrow with garlic and roast it? Could catch on in these crunchy-credit times?
Leigh – Yeah, but everyone seems to hate Dan Brown. I bet he’s got allsorts strung up from his eaves. Not Licorice Allsorts though. That would just be silly.
Queenie – Ooh, I hadn’t hear that before. Any of it. You are vay clever. But perhaps it was an Australian deity who had lost his way. I do not think sparrows have much sense?
Lucy – the poor bugger’s still there. I was hoping the window cleaner might tend to it but he just ran off faster than usual, crying. Ooh, yes, Cumulus would be a fabulous name. And Drizzle – perfect for a manic depressive!
Liane – I suppose the power of most things is in the mind of the recipient? Um… where does one buy Holy Water? I had a look in the Co-op and will try the local deli but otherwise it’ll have to be vodka?
Mya – Salix? Crumbs, that conjures up a myriad of images. What an utterly brilliant name; sort of academic yet hippy-ish. I love it!
OMG…circle the wagons and someone call a priest…..
I’m sure you have nothing to worry about hon
C x
I will think very seriously about sending some dead sparrows to Evil Squirrel, yes. Although he has now given me some seeds.
Apologies for the double-speak, I had a further attack of the sensibles and changed my name / the name of my blog.
Carol – The circling wagons and high priests are usually in attendance, along with all the paraphernalia required for public hangings here in the cul de sac. Methinks I should make good my escape.
Beleaguered Squidgy -Don’t eat the seeds! Nooooooo! In fact, the seeds may be to blame for your surge of the sensibles. I can think of no other reason, frankly.