The Blackbird
And while I’m on the subject of Spooky – and it’s nearly Hallowe’en, after all – let me tell you about the blackbird.
The terraced house in Splott in Cardiff where we lived in the early eighties had two bedrooms – one large, one small. We used the large one and kept our junk in the small one, which had not been used nor decorated for many years. It had an old fireplace, which was boarded up. It had a window, which was painted shut.
We kept the door shut as we didn’t ever use the room – just kept suitcases and boxes and an old bike in there. One day, however, we heard strange noises coming from the room, so we opened the door.
Inside was a blackbird, fluttering about, looking rather confused.
How had it got there? The only possible explanation would seem to be down the chimney – but, as I said, the fireplace, and access to the chimney, was closed off, and had been for years, by the look of it.
After a lot of effort we managed to guide the blackbird out through the bedroom door and finally out through the other bedroom window.
How did it get in there? We never found out. Sometimes, still, over twenty-five years later, if I wake up in the middle of the night, I return to the mystery of the blackbird and keep thinking about it, over and over, with no new ideas at all.
The terraced house in Splott in Cardiff where we lived in the early eighties had two bedrooms – one large, one small. We used the large one and kept our junk in the small one, which had not been used nor decorated for many years. It had an old fireplace, which was boarded up. It had a window, which was painted shut.
We kept the door shut as we didn’t ever use the room – just kept suitcases and boxes and an old bike in there. One day, however, we heard strange noises coming from the room, so we opened the door.
Inside was a blackbird, fluttering about, looking rather confused.
How had it got there? The only possible explanation would seem to be down the chimney – but, as I said, the fireplace, and access to the chimney, was closed off, and had been for years, by the look of it.
After a lot of effort we managed to guide the blackbird out through the bedroom door and finally out through the other bedroom window.
How did it get in there? We never found out. Sometimes, still, over twenty-five years later, if I wake up in the middle of the night, I return to the mystery of the blackbird and keep thinking about it, over and over, with no new ideas at all.
posted by Daphne at 6:11 pm
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