What has a pair of
wings and crows?
Four Vignettes
Ladybirds!
A host of ten, including one of the new-to-the-UK Black Harlequin,
encountered on the morning City-Walk with Max. The Black
Harlequin is rumoured to be spreading a sexually transmitted disease amongst the
native British Ladybirds. The Harlequin was surrounded by the others.
One tabloid here feels the need to tell its readers that this
new ladybird is not a threat to the human population. Friends in my old Florida home will tell you that almost any ladybird is
a threat to me. Never has one landed on me
that did not bite. But then, everything in
Florida will eat you. Reference the air traveller
who tried to eat another a year or two back.
Hey, that is MY name!
Somewhere past the ladybirds in the city centre, Max and I turned
onto C R A Z Y.
Max wanted to go to Mid-Summer Common, the big, unruly patch of
wild where all of his dog friends play in the morning. Instead of taking the main path onto the open space,
Max took the fenced side-path.
― "Max, where are
we going?" I asked.
Just then, a young man was passing. "Yes. What was that?" he stopped to ask.
― "I was just talking
to my dog." I replied. People without
pets are often surprised that people with pets talk to them. "Isn't that right, Max." I continued.
― "But, Max is my name." He insisted.
This has happened before; so, I thought nothing
of it, while failing to take note of his 'but'. "You can't call him that!"
― "Call him what?" I asked, puzzled, "Max?"
― "That is MY name."
― "Happy to meet you, Max!" I offered,
"This is Max too."
― "Max is not a dog." He was quite insistent
now, even agitated.
― "I didn't mean to ..." I began to apologise,
when the young man turned in a huff, and, walked away.
"Fences make good neighbours,"
I thought, "and, I must be on wrong side of the fence."
God on the Common.
As the young man stepped into the distance, Max crouched for a
poo beside the fence. This was the part of
the Common known as Butt Green; a poo here seemed logical. I pulled a bag from my coat pocket and bent down
to pick up the poo.
Suddenly, a set of feet appeared before me on the other side of
the fence.
― "What are you doing?"
Demanded a stern voice from above.
I looked up to see the face of God, or, God as frequently depicted
in Renaissance paintings, only here protected from the light rain by a nylon hoodie.
― "I'm picking up
the dog's shit." I said. People in Cambridge can be militant about dog shit.
Sometimes, I've found, making a little kabuki theatre of it helps.
― "No you're not!"
the voice of God contended.
I lifted myself, suspecting that if I were not to be hit by a
bolt of lightning, I might well be hit by one of the two bags that God was holding.
― "I am indeed."
I was irritated. "Here. Look."
I lifted a bag full of shit into view. I should have known better than to respond, but
life has taught me not to quietly step back into 'my place'.
― "I know that you're
not; ... and, you know it too!" God on the Common insisted.
― "Alright, then."
I must have seemed to agree; and, stepped
away to deposit the shit-bag in a bin a few feet back. God followed, albeit on the other side of the fence.
― "You've been sent
to infiltrate my mind. You should know that
I know it; and, I will defend myself." The shit-bag landed at the bottom of the bin with
a dull thud, imitating the sound of distant thunder.
― "What?" I was taken aback. Before me stood a man, reasonably well clothed,
if belied by nylon, berating me for an act of aggression neither seen nor intended.
― "Where are you from?"
he demanded. A question no immigrant in a
country seemingly, if slightly mad with anti-immigrant fervour wants to hear.
― "You're not even
English." he observed. I've always suspected
that the English weren't quite at ease in their union with the Scots, the Welsh
and the Irish, but it was unsettling to hear xenophobia use a word other than 'British'.
I was cowed into an uneasy state of quiet.
― "You're Dutch",
he spit, "aren't you. You don't belong
here, ... trying to infiltrate yourself into
the mind of a Psychic. You should know better."
I couldn't stop thinking about the irony of being pegged as Dutch.
The Netherlands is one of two countries that
has tried to deny me access, suspecting me of entering under false identification.
The other was, a bit more ironically, my
birth-country, the USA.
― "I should have known
better", I agreed sincerely.
― "You're just too
blind to see it!" God chided.
He turned away, on the path into the open space of the Common.
As he proceeded into the distance, toward Jesus Green, he occasionally stopped.
Where he stood, he rounded back on his heels, to see me still dumb-founded on the
wrong side of the fence.
"Where he leads, I follow."
... I say to the street preacher who asks where I will go when I die. It's a multiple choice question. (A) Heaven. (B) To the dogs.
There's no doubt about my meaning. I'm at the end of Max's lead, being dragged back into the heart of the city centre, ... where the Ladybirds await our return.
7 January 2017
Reports of the Black Harlequin ladybird began
around 17 November 2016.
Lead is British English for an American Leash.
