The Calling! - A Story

Clearing a relative’s house after their death, I found an old tape player with a single cassette inside. There were no others. Intrigued, I found some batteries in a drawer of insulating tape, drawing pins, plasters and spare buttons and put them in the old tape-player, inserted the cassette, and pressed the play button down with a clunk. I was wondering whether it might be an audio diary with an interesting revelation into this old recluse.

The tape disappointed me! It was just a series of gentle tones, high in pitch, not sounding like anything in particular. I flipped It over but more of the same! How strange!

I shrugged, and got on with clearing the house. When I left at the end of the day, out of the corner of my eye, I noticed that the rooflines of the houses were full of birds, on ridge tiles, on chimney pots and swaying on aerials - bird after bird after bird!

It was early in the year for starlings to gather, and because I was preoccupied with loading the car, I didn't notice that there were crows and blackbirds and dunnocks and finches and jackdaws and pigeons and gulls and starlings and robins and tits and rooks and jays, and even snipes and lapwings and oystercatchers and hawks and kittiwakes and sanderlings - and further not noticed by me, herons stood still on gateposts like statues!

I drove away, my mind on other things. I did not know that if I kept playing the tape, every bird for miles around would have heard it and been called!

Anonymous