birds of a feather

A Story by Katt Marie

an experiment in the art of characters

Allison stared after him, the man who owned the book store across the street. She was determined to find out how he ticks. Everyday she would see him stacking books in his tiny kingdom like a strange bird she could never catch. Going about his business he never noticed her in the café sipping coffee for hours at a time only for the sake of watching him.

Today is the day she vowed to herself, today is the day I’ll ask his name. Allison paid her waitress for ten of her favorite caffeinated intravenous injections that would kept her wired for the majority of the day and walked out of the door with a fire under her butt. Almost as soon as she got to the sidewalk the man walked out of the store to put out a sign and that flame went from a roaring fire to a kitchen flame to a candle and finally wisped out from under her altogether. Almost simultaneously she tripped and fell into a nearby bush crying out in pain.

The man at Watt’s books looked up only to see a nice piece of screeching shrubbery while Allison, still on the opposite side of the street, had the misfortune to meet a branch that was quite disturbed by her presence and began to attack her nose. Over the branch she could vaguely see through the leaves his fluffily long Mohawk resembling an exotic and colorful bird bobbing back into the store.

With slight difficulty Allison managed to get back up and dusted the dirt off of her jeans. Detangling her coppery hair from a twig that had gotten a little too attached. She looked and noticed that the sign he had put out had said the store would be closed for lunch. Now Allison crossed the road with dignity and looked into the window to find the store dark and desolate. With this she was forced to deign defeat for now and make her way to her own work.

Entering the flower store down the street through the back door Allison was bombarded by the tantalizing scents of tulips, daisies, lavender and all the other flowers Cardinals, Flora and Fauna for Every Occasion carries in stock. A coworker, Casey, popped his head around the corner and exclaimed “oh honey, thank god! Here fill these orders.” Frenetically he threw the wisps of paper at her chest and went on trying to do whatever he was doing.

Allison slumped over to her table and stationed herself on the welcoming stool to read her slips. Pawing through them she noticed that one had been filed only moments before she got there by a Mr. Noah Watts. Holy cow! It’s him! She gripped it close as if at a moments notice it could fly away. She finally knew his name! Her suspicions grew and fattened until she realized Noah had ordered a dozen white roses and didn’t add a card. In fact the only thing the order said at all was that he wanted to pick them up himself in a few hours.

“Huh. Must be for his girlfriend.” Allison jumped as Beth, another of the flower shop trio, popped up out of nowhere. She read over Allison’s “He’s the guy with the Mohawk across the street from java jungle, right?” Allison inserted a confirmative nod. She began cutting the flowers for the bouquet ignoring the long narrative of none other than Beth. A tiny seed of fear began to form in Allison’s stomach.

Soon the time arrives for Noah to pick up his flowers and Allison makes the irrational decision to hide on the ground behind a hibiscus plant. She listened intently to his throaty laugh at one of Casey’s infamous jokes only to hear Noah give a perfectly hysterical retort. Oh god he’s funny too? How perfect can one guy be? Then Casey asks the single most important question “so, these for your girlfriend?”

This one phrase tears the poor little Allison in two between hope and despair, ignorance and curiosity, fear and dreams. The time in between the proposal and response is like a hell she has never felt before and she fervently picks at the newly forming hole in her denim feathers. The ignorant Noah relieves her of her torment with his “no actually they are for a display in my shop. Well, actually one is for the little dove that lounges around the café across the street.”

Hope fills Allison once again and she dreams that night of a beautiful cockatoo with the plumage of a rainbow. The next day she went back to the café and breathes in the aromatic coffee scent. Her tradition remains and she heads to the same seat by the window. The sun rained down not on the empty table Allison expected but a single white rose with a hand written card. It inscribed:

“Dove,

You really shouldn’t drink so much coffee. It just can’t be healthy.

Yours admirer,

The Book Stacker Across the Way.”