Scrambled Eggs

Jeremy's head is aching. Again. It's been doing so every morning for five weeks now. Always the same procedure; wake up with a start, head connecting with coffin lid, the feeling of sickness worsens, dash to the bathroom, throw up into the toilet and go to the kitchen for breakfast.

His scrambled eggs never taste good these days.

Also, the newspaper is never in his mail box. There used to be a new one every morning - except for Sundays - but now there aren’t. In fact, he hasn’t gotten a single letter or even an advertising leaflet for quite some time. This perplexes him, vexes him, today as always, but as soon as the parrot squawks for attention he forgets it. He gets up from his stool with a smile and a sigh, and sticks his head into the fridge to look for vegetables.

He cuts them up - it’s a paprika, a cucumber and a slice of melon - while humming a tuneless melody to himself. The parrot cage stands in the next room, and he walks there with the square pieces of food. The parrot, who he’s named Penina, look expectantly at him as he draws closer, and she gives another squawk. Jeremy opens the cage door and carefully places out the bits of vegetable on various different places in the cage. Penina affectionately nibbles his thumb as he does this, and he stops for a moment to stroke her head.

So he’s placed out all but one - one that he holds to the bird. She climbs onto his hand and he takes her out of the cage and gives her the bit of paprika still between the left hand’s middle and index fingers. As the parrot takes it, Jeremy’s hand travels to her neck, feeling the beginning of the spine beneath skin and pearl grey feathers. The bird ruffles up one time as Jeremy grabs hold of her.

Her neck snaps with grace and a cracking sound. Nothing is heard from her as she goes limp in his hands; the claws loosen their grip, the glint in her eyes is gone, the paprika in her beak falls to the floor.

Poor Penina, thinks Jeremy as he opens a window and throws the little body as far away as he can manage, without putting too much effort in it. The dead bird hits a nearby tree and gets stuck in the fork of a bough, a few feathers falling of and spiralling to the ground. For a few minutes, Jeremy watches the morbid sight, before closing the window and going back into the kitchen and his breakfast.

- -

No more, declares Cate, underlining the statement with a false chord on her guitar.

You’ve got egg in your beard, she snaps at Jeremy. He examines his reflection in a toaster placed conveniently next to him and sees the small remain of his breakfast.

Cate stands up and throws the guitar away, and the nasty sound of the instrument breaking is heard. She is raging, for she hates playing the guitar. She’s loathed it from all these years that she’s been playing and now it’s enough. Grabbing the airplane tickets on the drawer, she gives Jeremy a kiss on the cheek before leaving him in the room with the lights turned out.

- -

You are repulsive, says Sean, his face marking the truth of his words.

They are lying in Jeremy’s coffin, just having had the most wonderful sex.

Jeremy looks past Sean, staring into the ceiling. He knows Sean is only joking. But the coldness when he stands up and leaves isn’t a joke. If it is, then it’s not funny.

Cate’s hand on Jeremy’s shoulder is also cold. You should have come with me to Malta, says she, smiling her kind smile. He reaches up to touch her tousled hair, but she’s not there. She’s on Malta, where she’s living in a five-room villa with a girl whose name eludes Jeremy for the moment.

Oh, and you’ve got egg in your beard, says Cate, and Jeremy turns his head to look at his reflection in a vase placed conveniently next to him. He sees the small remain of his breakfast in his beard, and Cate leaves him in the room with the lights turned out.

- -

Jeremy is listening to Pink Floyd. He isn’t really a fan, but a friend gave him a CD, and so he listens to them. The singer - whatever his name is - sings ‘We’re just two lost souls swimming in a fishbowl, year after year’, and Jeremy thinks it’s a rather good song. He gets up, turns the record player off and goes out on the balcony.

It is a nice day, as well. He climbs up on the railing like he’s done so many times before. He’s been practising his balance this way for a month or so, and now he can stand still up there. He looks to the sky, past the parrot corpse still in the tree, and sees a lot of white clouds. The sun is about to reach zenith, at which his balcony will become flooded with sun. He looks down on the street.

It’s not a very crowded street. Very seldom there are people walking on it, and it isn’t very worn out. Jeremy smiles, a calm smile, and twirls around on the railing. Cate’s hand is in his, and she stands next to him. What are you doing, Nowhere Man, asks she, and Jeremy likes it.

I’m going to Strawberry Fields, replies he, playing along in her Beatles game. Cate always says that he resembles to George Harrison with that beard of him. Jeremy doesn’t mind.

So you think you can tell heaven from hell, asks Cate, looking at something very far away, perhaps in Malta. Yes, that’s right; it was she who gave the CD to Jeremy about two months before she left for Malta, where she now lives in a five-room villa with a girl whose name eludes Jeremy for the moment.

You should have come with me to Malta, says Cate. And you’ve got egg in your beard. Jeremy turns around to examine his reflection in the window, and sees the small remain of his breakfast.

This time Cate doesn’t leave him with the lights turned out.

It’s him who turns the lights out this time.

Now he can go to Malta.