Vile Bodies

CREATURE REPORTS

a) I think I'm emerging victorious in the battle of the flies. Last week, I was drowning fifty a day in my vinegar-pot. Today, there were only four. Good thing, too: I'm nearly out of vinegar.

b) The garden-mice were back, this morning. I saw one sneaking along the wall when I first arrived, and another ran by later. That one had a twig in his mouth. Queer, that. Do mice build nests?

c) A dead bird, which had been decaying near the Dumpsters since March, finished disintegrating today. The first time I saw that bird, it was flat, but lushly feathered. A week later, it was bare. Ants had made inroads, and something had taken a wing. The skin went next, along with the gristle. The last bone-fragment disappeared in late October. What remained leached away by degrees, leaving a bird-shaped stain on the pavement. Today, even the stain had gone.

d) A starling landed on my knee, today. It came over the garden wall in a tizzy, and made straight for the nearest perch. I jumped, it squawked, and that was that. Its feet only touched me for a second. Nonetheless, it felt compelled to stand about chewing its soles for the next ten minutes. Thanks a lot, starling.

e) There's a spider stuck in the kitchen's electrical outlet. I squashed it into the plughole last month. I'd scrape it out, but I'm afraid of getting electrocuted. (Maybe I could scrape it out with a plug!)