Sunday, May the 29th, 2005

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Grebe

The ghostly grebe that haunted the windswept coast of Flappings never frightened Gunther the Pipsqueak. Gunther had a rare medical condition. He was unable to perceive birds with any of his senses, including the sixth. Although he was a pipsqueak, Gunther had an active sixth sense, as well as an eerie and befuddling seventh sense, but eerie and befuddling as it was it was also incapable of apprehending any of the myriad forms of bird life with which our planet is blessed, or some would say cursed.

I think I must have been about forty before I learned that there were people who hated birds. Of course there are many folk who are frightened of all things avian, but fear is not hate, or not exactly. I was to discover, however, that there exists a subculture of bird-haters, or more accurately owl-haters. They have their own samizdat journal, of surprisingly elegant typographic design, entitled The Samizdat Journal Of Owl-Haters, which is available on subscription.

Despite not having a clue what an owl was, Gunther was a keen reader of the journal, for he had somehow got it into his head that through its lonely owl-hating hearts columns he might find himself a wife. He spent long evenings in his woodcutter's cottage on the edge of the Flappings forest poring over the advertisements and pencilling a cross next to the ones that attracted him, but so shy was he that he could never pluck up the courage to pick up the metal tapping machine to make contact.

One Easter Sunday, after a night made miserable for all but Gunther by the skirling of the ghostly grebe, the pipsqueak's ma confronted him in his workshop. She was as splendid an example of genteel decay as one was ever likely to meet, and Gunther found himself trembling whenever she came a-visiting. On her wrist she wore a little leather cuff on which perched her tame hummingbird, but of course her son knew this not.This morning, the purpose of her visit was to persuade Gunther to place his own advertisement in the personal columns. Knowing that he was functionally illiterate, she offered to write something for him. After tea and scones, she did so.

A few weeks later I was skulking along the sandbanks on the Flapping coastline, armed with my ectoplasm-bottling jar and a pair of spirit-binoculars, hoping to catch a glimpse of the ghostly grebe. I sat down to rest on a sitting-place, and a gust of wind blew a scrap of paper into my hair. It was a page torn from The Samizdat Journal of Owl-Haters, a publication new to me. Thus I read it with the avid curiosity which is my defining quality. Here is what I read:

Pipsqueak oblivious of birds seeks soulmate. Avid curiosity preferred. Contact metal tapping machine number 87341.

I never did see the ghostly grebe. But within a week, dear reader, I married Gunther, and we have lived happily ever since in the woodcutter's cottage on that windswept and grebe-haunted coastline.