something, something, something

Rainbeaux' something

(Author Note: This part is not finished and is to be continued)

Rose's one year old albino mynah bird, Rainbeaux, had a hunch that he wanted to play. Sensing her panic from Rose's frantic movements yet lacking sufficient vocabulary to convey his feelings, he repeatedly squawked the one phrase he figured she'd comprehend.

"Out, out, dammit. Out, out, dammit." And then just to add a heightened sense urgency to his demand, "Out, out, damn Rose." That stopped her dead in her tracks.

She did her cute head tilted to the left thing as her brown eyes gazed into his pink ones and asked, "You think you know something, don't you, Rainbeaux?"

He hopped up and down on his birch perch while flapping his wings to provide his owner with a greater feeling of assurance. She unlatched the gilded cage door and extended her arm for him to use a step to get up to his usual spot upon her left shoulder.

"I'm going to trust you. I've got an inkling you're aware of precisely what you are doing." Rose grabbed an oversized golf umbrella of many colors from the tall walnut vase by the entryway, then opened the elaborately carved mahogany front door. A pair of tiny jingle bells attached one to each claw tinkled as Rainbeaux launched his white feathered body into flight. It was a short distance to his intended destination.

Rose, caught off guard by the mynah's sudden take off, muttered a barely audible curse as she observed the direction of his beeline course of flight. That's when she guessed where he was headed. She grabbed her mobile to send a short text message to Miss Fanny's phone that read "crossbend x custer" then took three bounding steps from the elevated front porch as she set off out on an impressively paced jog, for a near sixty year old. As she neared the half way point of the half mile route to the intersection, she listened intently as the approaching emergency sirens crescendoed then ceased. She rounded the corner and stared up ahead to the crest of the hill, "Good bird and good for me for trusting you."

She felt no relief upon reaching the site, only a growing sense of anxiety and fright. As a lifelong resident of this neighborhood of upper middle class homes with modestly sized yards in the front, side, and back, she was on a first name basis with most of the emergency personnel.

"Suze, is he alive?"

"Yes, but barely. I think we got here just in time. That your bird?" she asked while pointing towards a lower limb nearby pin oak tree. "I've overheard some rumors circulating among the station's crew about a certain lady in possession of a rare white bird."

Rose's angry bird stare left little doubt about her opinion of the badly timed question. She turned attention away from the tactless Suze.

"Is he okay? Bobby? Mac? Will somebody please say something to me?"

Grace Simms, the uniformed police officer who had been the first to arrive at the scene, came over to silently stand by Rose. Rainbeaux glided down from the tree to resume his perch atop her shoulder. The three watched anxiously as the EMTs strapped a groaning Sam Crocker onto the ambulance gurney then loaded him in for the four mile trip to Plano Medical. That's when Grace finally spoke. "Hop in to the back seat of the cruiser. I'll give you a lift. We'll follow them there."

"Thank you, Grace, but my friends just arrived. We'll meet you all there."

With Rainbeaux renewing his grip to his place on her shoulder, Rose shuttered the umbrella then shook off the water before closing the rear passenger side door of the cobalt blue Range Rover.

Lily Rose, the driver, Rose's much younger namesake, and almost doppelganger, was the first to ask the obvious question.

"I heard him moaning. I guess that means the stinking pumpkin head is either alive or making significant progress towards zombification."

Miss Fanny giggled (yes, giggled) as she slightly in her seat to make eye contact with Rose. "Pumpkin head? Whatever…?"

"I've no fucking clue."

Lily Rose persisted with her line of inquiry. "I meant, do you think this was an accident or an intentional attempt at, you know, ending it all?"

"I repeat. I've no fucking clue. Now, please, take me home."

"I thought you told the cop we'd meet them at the hospital."

"I lied. Lily Rose…"

"You're the boss. Home it is."

This time it was Miss Fanny who persisted. "A thought just occurred to me, Rose. You and Sam even cuss the same. Are you sure you two aren't destined to be together?"

Rose made no attempt to disguise the smirk or soften her snarky reply. "And I don't know if you've noticed, Miss Fanny, that all of us cuss alike. It's as if there's this godlike creature with a limited vocabulary penning the script for our lives."

Rainbeaux felt the three pairs of eyes - the sky blue set of Miss Fanny, the two emerald green of Lily Rose, the acorn brown duo of Rose - all descend upon him. Without allowing the humans to ruffle so much as one single one of his pearly white feathers, Rainbeaux allowed his head to droop, eyes to close, and began what he felt was a well deserved snooze. After all, it was he who saved the dude's life and knew the answers to all of the questions not one single one of the women had bothered to direct his way.

(Author Note: This part is not finished and is to be continued)