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My Turn
Jim Borg
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Newfound friendship suddenly takes flight
I HAD heard about the intelligence of tropical birds -- parrots, especially -- so was not surprised to hear a cheerful chirp when I passed by my new neighbor's window.
Intelligence carries the potential for boredom, so this clearly was a greeting from a bird left alone during the day who was looking for some form of sentient company.
I obligingly whistled in response, two simple notes, a kind of musical "hel-lo," and felt happy that I had reached out to another warm-blooded being. That simple exchange, I reflected, had brightened his and my day in a way that probably dates back tens of thousands of years to mankind's first animal companions.
Over the next several months, I never failed to respond when my bird friend acknowledged my presence.
In fact, when I was in a particularly good mood, I would venture beyond my two-note hello and whistle a few bars from Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue," or the Beach Boys' "God Only Knows" or maybe some "Moonlight Serenade," confident that the parrot or parakeet or cockatiel or cockatoo could appreciate my versatility of tone.
I wasn't sure what kind of bird it was because I thought it would be rude to peer through my neighbor's louvers. But passing by at night sometimes I would glance inside for a sign of my caged friend.
Often, perched atop a bookshelf was a cat.
My goodness, the poor bird had to live with a cat! No wonder he looked beyond his owner's condo for comfort.
Then, after the better part of a year, the bird's greetings abruptly stopped.
Not a peep.
I began to worry. Had my pal died? I thought that exotic birds could live a long time, but how long? Good grief, maybe the cat got him!
"You're good at talking to strangers," I said to my wife, who had often heard me respond to the bird's insistent trill. "Ask our neighbor what happened to the bird."
That night she answered by e-mail: "Alas! No bird ... but a smoke detector with a defective beep which she recently replaced."
Yes, this is sad and funny at the same time. With no bird to greet, my world feels just a bit narrower.
Odder still, I can still conjure the critter that I now know never was. He occupies my imagination more clearly than coelacanths or coatimundis or any number of things that I am assured exist but have never seen.
Besides, whistling isn't for goodbyes.
Jim Borg is a copy editor for the Star-Bulletin and former editor of Hawaii Magazine.
My Turn is a periodic column written by Star-Bulletin staff members expressing their personal views.