Returning home from my workday, I readied myself to work through my list of things to do before it was time to start dinner. I glanced outside, and saw something in the backyard I could not quite identify. Maybe one of the cats had gotten into something. It always was easiest to blame the cats. They were home all day. We were not.
I changed into “non-work” clothes and ventured into the back yard to see if the mess was related to a harmless prank of theirs, or maybe instead would be something that would require me to sign the cats up for protection from still unknown but potentially angry neighbors.
The stuff I was seeing looked like feathers.
And it looked like the feathers of a bird that did not live in this area unless it was a pet of a neighbor, and more than likely, the pet of a wealthy neighbor.
As I bent down to the first pile of feathers, I started the process of categorizing what I found to any known bird. Make that any known exotic bird. They were blue for the most part, but not the feathers of a scrub jay, or any other more common bird.
I thought we were in trouble. The cats would be lucky if they would be able to show their faces in the area again. Maybe we could pretend we did not know them.
“Oh, those collars must be from the previous owner. That isn’t our phone number on the tags.” Or, “Cats? We do not have any cats. They seem like ones we have seen around, but we can’t have cats. We’re both allergic.”
I was getting my story together. It would be easy enough to convince the cats to go along with whatever I came up with. They never said much anyway, but I was not sure if they would keep quiet if confronted by an angry neighbor. Maybe we would still be able to plead their case that they hadn’t meant to kill a bird of any kind. They were not like other cats. “They just have a thing for feathers,” we would claim.
I am sure the cats would not have known that the more colorful the feathers, the more exotic the bird was. And the larger they were, the more expensive it would be for us to replace. Or that all of the above would determine just how soon they would be able to venture outside again, if ever.
I started to add up the possibilities as I went from one pile of feathers to the next.
This bird, whatever it may have been, must have put up quite a struggle. The feathers were everywhere. I could only hope that however bad it looked to me as a human cat owner, that they had not “played with it” as cats will do, too long before they finished it off. It was obvious by the fourth pile of feathers that nothing would have survived this.
Maybe we could give the cats to friends on the other side of town until the trouble blew over.
Then I saw the final pile of feathers and the remains of their source. It was lodged under a branch of a shrub in the side yard. I could not quite make out yet what it was. I bent down and on my knees, reached into and under the shrub. I got my hand on what seemed to be the last remaining attached feathers, and slowly pulled it out.
As I pulled it out for a better look, I saw what the cats had attacked and systematically torn the majority of feathers from as they played.
The exotic bird turned out to be a discarded feather duster.
Memory is the Key 