Parakeets Fly East
The summer had been wet even by London’s standards: six weeks of damp. Birds flew close to the ground all summer, pinching the food crawling high in the soil. But that day the weather was good. Jackson opened the fridge.
‘You want one? A cider, or something.’
Rita stood in the other room, leafing through bills.
As the can cracked open, the dog ran to the backdoor, tail swiping the floor, waiting.
Rita said, ‘You crazy? Monday, two-thirty. What’s the idea?’
‘No idea.’ Jackson pointed to the slanting sunshine coming through the kitchen window. ‘Shame to waste it. Summer’s nearly over.’
Rita shook her head. ‘Always summer for you. Summer. You’d get pissed in an igloo and call it summer.’
Jackson didn’t get a glass. He sat at the table, ran his finger on the sharp edge of the can’s opening. He didn’t look again at the sun, or where the dog sat with big eyes by the back door.
‘Hey,’ Rita said. ‘Are you O.K.?’
Jackson shrugged. He bent the can’s tab back and forth until it snapped.
‘You seen the parakeets.’
Rita was reading. ‘Getting less of these every year. And the ones that come, come late.’ She shook her head, placed the card on the table. Jackson could see a long passage written in a spidery hand and signed off: Dad, XxxxX.
‘They’re in the park,’ Jackson continued. ‘Never thought they’d make it here. Remember? Started where I grew up. Mum said they were hardy bastards.’ Jackson drained his can and smiled, then shook it. He half yawned, made a searching noise. The warmth of the alcohol trickled, melted him slightly. He went to Rita and nuzzled her neck. Rita softened at first but then scrunched her shoulders upwards.
‘Mum said they escaped a zoo. Or George Michael had sixty in his house. Released them,’ Jackson laughed without smiling. ‘She always changed her story. Expert liar.’
‘I really don’t like the drinking.’ Rita put the mail down and went to the fridge. A loud squawk came through the open window.
‘Parakeets,’ Jackson said. ‘In our garden.’
Rita opened the back door, holding a glass with ice and a bottle of cider. The dog rushed out between her legs and barked away the green bird. It fluttered from the tree, a leaf in flight. Rita settled down on the bench.
‘Bit of sun,’ she said. ‘God! We have needed it.’
His beer was empty. He drummed his fingers on the table to counter the urge. Out the window, another parakeet landed on a branch, bright as a bad dream.
‘Hardy bastards,’ he repeated, not kindly, this time.
Jackson pinched crescent moons into the skin on his hand then pulled the handle, got another drink. The crack of the ice, squeeze of lime over fizzing tonic: like in his mother’s kitchen as he’d get home from school.
Dylan federico Pritchard
Dylan Federico Pritchard is a fiction writer who grew up in Rome but now lives in South East London.
He is currently working on a novella and a collection of short stories. His work has been long listed for the Fish Publishing Short Story Prize 23/24.
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