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the cuckoo shrike

Coracina Novaehollandia.

This fellow comes by twice a day, depending on the sun’s position in the large glass pane that protects the home from summer’s north-easters.

He flies up to the glass about thirty or forty times, twice a day, flutters up and knocks it softly with his beak. Then he retires back to a branch of the Durobby that grows close by.

Sometimes he manages to fly over the top of the glass and into the atrium itself, this is where we sit watching him. And of course the bafflement continues. Now he’s fluttering up to the inside of the glass and tapping it with his beak. Same problem.

It doesn’t matter which side of the glass he’s on, the problem remains the same.

There’s only himself on the other side.

10 Comments Post a comment
  1. Ben #

    It this some sought of complicated allegory?

    Spit it out Pete what do you want to tell us? We can take it.

    Has the muse dragged you to to another well?

    December 11, 2012
  2. it’s the way somethings are made to look Ben, you’re right there. Drinking in grubby bars in HK all night pretending to be Somerset Maugham is helping the process.
    Well on the way now, not all surfers are mugs.

    December 11, 2012
  3. davo's liver #

    Hey Pete, I go away for the weekend and come back to find something missing here? Were the black helos circling around your house? Back story?

    December 11, 2012
    • Can’t believe the stuff I’ve found out about that poor yank bastard they found on the beach back then, nothing like overdosing on maryjane to obtain the necessary tunnel vision … a bloke has got to have a bit of the scihztso in him to burrow back into the research.
      Back story is that I’ve got the guts on what happened to the Somerton Man: The Taman Shud Mystery.
      Meanwhile I’m yoicking around in HK eating chili and shitting nuggets. All will be revealed davo, I’ve got the fucker by the nuts.

      December 11, 2012
      • davo's liver #

        Atta boy, that’s what I was looking for. Where’d the prelim work go? You gotta be careful with stuff like this.

        I’m gonna be surprised in the end if there’s no Hong Kong involvement at some level. They’re crafty bastards, a finger in every pie.

        December 11, 2012
        • Everyone is dead now mate, except the file they keep somewhere, and the stuff that remains suppressed. Plus a little extra information has been passed over, ver’ tasty ….
          The prelim stuff has gone away …. it’s getting too good. Bloke has to go back to the rules of research and map it all out. It’s all on the internet now, but that’s like walking into the Mitchell library and looking for an old paperback that’s slipped down the back of a shelf.
          Guess who found it though, bozo the fearless.

          December 11, 2012
  4. An award for you, i know you don’t really go for these things…but just wanted to let you know…I think you deserve them all personally…but you choose:
    http://jobryantnz.wordpress.com/2012/12/13/tis-the-season/

    December 13, 2012
    • onya jo bryant, I’m happy enough just to be read, ta.

      December 13, 2012
  5. Careful how you go there Pete!

    December 15, 2012
    • It’s a melancholy tale from start to finish PK, everybody loses ..

      December 15, 2012

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