The Impostor

I promise you, I'm not a creepy Bird Lady. Honest.

But the mean, mean café owner* has scared away my sparrows with none other than a statue of an owl. It's about 40 cm high and it guards the table near the front entrance of the café. The sparrows no longer come inside. They are completely freaked out by its, well, owlish eyes.

And to be honest? So am I. :-(

OK, I should explain.

Every morning, when I'm typing away at my laptop at the back of my favourite café, I'm surrounded by sparrows. They come inside to keep warm, I suppose. And to peck through the sugar sachets on the tables. 

I sit alone at my little table, so it's quieter down my end. They must feel safe. Plus, I think they know I'm diabetic so there's more sugar left over down my end. ;-)

We have an unspoken agreement – I'm inspired by nature, you see, but we're still a little way off from spring so I've been starved of those types of sounds. So provided I don't startle the sparrows, or dwindle their sugar supplies, they agree to twitter and cheep away while I write. It's great! I can imagine I'm writing in a park, instead of a café!

(I have to admit – I thought I'd entered a new realm of bionics when I first started hearing birds back there. Was partly relieved, partly disappointed, when I discovered the birds were actually as close to me as they sounded!)

But this morning, I was instead greeted with the Death Stare of a dark brown, polyresin owl.

I sat as far away from the thing as possible, but I felt its presence. I looked at it from over my laptop screen, when I thought it wasn't watching. Had its head moved? I'm sure its head had moved.

Not a single sparrow dared venture inside.

I stared at the letters on my keyboard until they blurred into one another, but no words would come. No birds twittering. Just the cappuccino frother. The beeping of a truck reversing outside. And the disturbing conversation about bird-hunting season at a nearby table.

I glanced at the owl again. Hadn't it been closer to the other side of the table before? Scenes from Alfred Hitchock's The Birds suddenly started flashing in my mind and I shivered.

As the café owner wheeled a trolley nearby, I cleared my throat nervously. I was all set to stand up for the sparrows! To tell her that they'd been the source of my inspiration in there for the last month! And didn't she ever stop to listen to the beautiful sounds of the birds each morning? Didn't she much prefer the sound of birds tweeting to the emo song playing on the speakers overheard? Didn't she realise how lucky she was to hear the birds at all?

Then my observation skills kicked in. I realised the chairs around me were no longer covered in bird poop. The sugar sachets were neatly standing up in little glasses, paper intact. There were no sugar grains on the floor or on the tables.

I chuckled nervously. Guess the sounds might not be so important, eh? And, let's be honest, I'd be graduating to a new level of Mental Weirdness if I said anything. Even for me. And what if expressing my disdain at the silent, creepy impostor she'd hired meant I'd no longer be served coffee at this fine, bird-poop-free establishment? (Hmm. A lack of caffeine might actually quash inspiration faster than a lack of sparrows would. Perhaps I should make more of an effort to embrace the sound of the cappuccino frother instead.)

So I bit my tongue and said nothing. Spring is not far away. I will just set myself up outside after that.

But as I looked over at the owl again, I couldn't help think that I might not wait that long. I don't care how cool Harry Potter made them look, owls are creepy. And if this thing starts doing headstands for me, like that little gnome from The Sims 3, I am officially Out Of There.

(I think it just moved again.)

* Only kidding, café lady, you're not really mean - please keep the coffee coming. ;-)