This Is The End, My Friend

I sat at my computer several weeks ago, trying to write, when I slowly became aware of a growing noise outside the open windows in the living room. It penetrated my consciousness as a clacking, whirring, spitting sound. I wondered if the neighbor’s car radiator had exploded. The sound swelled rapidly, accompanied by shouting, until it overcame my willpower to remain in front of a blank screen.

The sound definitely originated from my neighbor’s yard, but it wasn’t a spent radiator. The trees in their backyard had turned black with a flurry of wings and beaks, and the sky spat out more birds, all screeching and rustling like a Hitchcockian nightmare. I pulled my head back from the window. What the actual hell?

I can see their yard from the upstairs balcony, so I bounded up and slid partway out, hoping neither bird nor human would notice. All became quite clear. The man’s dog had apparently pounced on and wounded a grackle, and the hurt bird was walking around, looking to escape. The neighbor, unhelpfully, was following it with a shovel, shouting at the dog to stay back. I don’t know what his intentions were, but the flock thought it did. As one huge, outraged creature, it hissed and spat, clacked and flapped. The closer he got to the injured bird, the louder it grew.

The man finally looked up from beneath the brim of his trucker hat, wincing as if…