Rattler’s Tale #4

More RATTLER’S TALE Stories
by Anthony North
for
Friday Fictioneers
dVerse
Poets & Storytellers United
The Sunday Muse
in association with
KEYUDOS

PHOTO PROMPT © Douglas M. MacIlroy

BIRDIE

Birdie loved windows.
He’d perch there and watch – especially the tech.
It was everywhere nowadays – tech.
Phone, alarm – a man by a laptop, writing.
Not that Birdie knew what they were.
He didn’t have consciousness like humans do.
Though he was smart.
Birdie stared, and the writer stared at Birdie.
Eventually the writer got bored – went back to work.
And Birdie stared some more.
Finally smart Birdie had seen all he wanted to see.
He uploaded the passwords and droned off.

THE EX-WIVES CLUB

It had taken her a long time to contact him.
‘Yeah, reader, I married them …’ he said …
‘… Madonna, Lady MacBeth and Lucy.’
She said: ‘But you never divorced. And you weren’t exactly faithful.’
‘Hey, I’m a modern man – the freedom to roam and all that.
‘And let’s face it, neither were they. They even swap familiars.’
‘The simple fact is,’ she interrupted, ‘you had no respect for women.’
‘Yeah I did. It’s just that I wanted to respect them all.’
She broke in once more: ‘No, you were a nasty, insidious womaniser.’
She was getting angry now, and realized how easy it was to …
She didn’t have time to finish.
As any medium knows, emotion breaks the circuit, his last words echoing in the ether.
‘So how long are they going to stand on my grave … ?’

Book 28 of 68, A Family Loss: A Crime cum Horror Novel, out 27 April

102 comments on “Rattler’s Tale #4

  1. Ex-wives club! I love the direction you went with the Muse Anthony, and that last question through me for a loop with a smile. That birdie is wonderful too. Have a safe and wonderful weekend Anthony!

  2. I appreciate your line, “emotion breaks the circuit,” if that is one of the laws of behavior the they wrote the book wrong. Anthony’s Second Law of Human Behavior.” Women are born with it.
    I also smiled, a friend of mine had four wives, serially. He was late for his funeral because he was snowed in at his girl friend’s house up in Wisconsin. But his four wives made the funeral on time.
    ..

  3. will not trust any bird after this! anyway, drones are doing a lot of stuff nowadays, from surveillance to defusing bombs.
    and what a grim, chilly tale in the ‘ex-wives club’

  4. Enjoyed both of these–loved the similar ways observation insisted on slipping through privacy guards 🙂

Leave a comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *