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CORNELIA CORNCRAKE AND THE BIRDS
(Peter Rosier)
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Miss Cornelia Corncrake was a maiden lady of indeterminate age who loved birds. She admired their smooth feathery bodies, their beautiful songs (some species anyway) and their ability to fly around the world without passports or airline tickets.
Having recently taken early retirement, Cornelia was able to indulge her interest all day by putting out food in her small backstreet-London garden, watching the birds coming and going, chasing off neighbourhood cats and otherwise making the world a more bird-friendly place.
Wishing to encourage more feathered visitors, she seriously considered learning some bird song to tempt them in but her natural inability to carry a tune of any description and the fact that her voice made a rusty nail scratching the surface of a particularly squeaky slate seem quite pleasant in comparison, discouraged her.
Instead she considered ways of imitating their lifestyles to be more at one with the objects of her desire. If this begins to seem quite strange, you must realise that Cornelia was very much on her own with no-one to say enough is enough.
Casting around for a bird to imitate, Cornelia seized upon that most underrated of nature’s garbage collectors, the vulture. This may seem a bizarre choice in urban London but, by now, poor Cornelia was somewhat odd. Nevertheless it is true that, when her cadaverous frame was dressed in the long, shabby black coat she favoured; her elongated neck, its random hairs growing up, down and around it, and her rather large, curved nose suggested a strong resemblance to a vulture - at least more than any other bird.
As summer started, she climbed with amazing litheness, up into her front garden tree where she settled down amongst the leaves to observe the birds and the surrounding terrain, much as she had seen vultures do on nature TV. In keeping with her dedication, she decided to eat sparingly and drink a little water only until a sufficiently large kill occurred on which she could feast after the other animals. Sadly, the back streets of Chiswick are not noted for the thunder of zebra hooves or wildebeest trotters nor for the roar of prides of hunting lions, and there was no food of that kind to be had.
Nevertheless, Cornelia clung hard to her determination to live as the birds do, with the sad result that one day, having reached her place in the tree with somewhat more effort than usual, she suddenly died. Being high summer, with the tree in full leaf, and with no-one to miss her, she remained lodged in the crook of the branches undiscovered until autumn came and enough leaves had fallen to reveal her to passers-by in the street.
By this time, the birds had already found her and, in death at least, Cornelia attained her desire to be a part of them. All that was left was a picked-clean skeleton dressed in the remains of a black coat.
THE END
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