Fly the Coop

It was time to leave the nest, to flappy-flap the coop. “High-time,” my Dada had said when I told them. “High-Tide,” I thought, and my boat was ready. Them being him and The Old-Dear. He wasn’t convinced I would stay away, there was nothing different about this time. I had been away and back so many times. Like a boomie-boomerang. I would be like the prodigal son yet again he thought to himself. A few weeks of random recklessness and I would be back. While I thought to myself, “This boomerang won’t come back Dada-dadio, not this time.” The Old-Dear cried angry-hurt tears but she knew it was her High-Noon. She accepted it, and put her Winchester away. She smiley-smiled very much when the bro-brothers all married and left for eternal bliss. So how come I had to feel like a treacherous doggie and put off my escape to the big wild world? No, this time I had bought a single ticket. No return and no deposit. I had signed the black dot-dotty line to repay over my working lifetime. My productive years, when I had thick hot blood to spill and scrawl my name. My useful years, when I could be a goody-two-shoes capitalist and property owner. As long as I played their stretchy game, by their bendable rules. I jumped in feet first though, and kept my head above the grabbing, pulling currents. Ears nose and eyes above the splashy, splooshy surface, so that I had all my sensible senses and facilities on look-out. On guard for fins cutting through the shadowy, malarkey, life-sucking swell. What was swimming beneath, I could only hope would nibbley-nibble and not bitey-bite. Not too jaggy-sharp or hard at the very least.

So I said “Ching-Ching Cheerio,” and “Ta-ta,” to Dada and The Old-Dear. They stood at the door and waved me off saying, “Look after your good-self. Remember to get enough sleep and to eat properly!” Dada gave me two weeks before I would be back. I gave myself the rest of my life. So I clop-clopped down the hill to catch the big maroon and white bus that went ziggy-zaggy across town, to my new and humble abode in the very green, green grass of home, in Hi-Bee land. The keys clinky-clanked in the depths of my jacket pocket, and the noise made my heart swell and beat fast people! I reached down until I could take hold of them, and clutched the warm metal in my fisty-hand. What a brilliant feeling it is that freedom from oppressive love brings! It allows new thoughts to give painless birth to new ideas and possibilities. But always keep the new mortgage oppression sensibly under control. Under its own lock and key, with a measure of healthy denial of its power. It will diminish finally, with its power strangled, and you will be free of it.

The bus was waiting obediently at the terminus as I strode to the bottom of the hill and fished in my trouser pocket for money to pay the fare. Coins jingle-jangled as my fingers searched through them, like a shoal of tiny fish escaping and evading, until I caught the correct size and shape. I paid my fare-dues to the uniformed driver, who sat alert and upright in his cabin at the large round driving-wheel, ready to move off. He responded by producing a small ticket with a polite nod. I trotty-trotted up the stairs and took a seat on the top-deck of the bus and watched with a new sense of wonder as the bus swayed and weaved through streets and buildings, and the other traffic, showing me completely new aspects, and making new suggestions to me as it went. It took an hour for it to deliver me to the place I would step off, near the street that I would now call Home-Sweet-Home. It was early November and already starting to get dark, and it was very baltic and brass-monkeys. The Electric Warrior Man was coming to turn on the powerfulness between four and six pm the company had said. I had timed it very nicely, indeed I had, and got in my flat only fifteen minutes early. I had no desire to sit in the freezing darklyness like a silent owl waiting for a mousy-mouse any longer than I could avoid. I still sat for nearly one long, cold hour though, before the Electric Light Cavalry arrived and created the big brightness. “There you are son,” the elderly looking cavalry warrior announced, “You can see what you are doing now!” “I can indeed sir,” I said, “thank you very much in bucket-loads for attending in person.” With that he said, “Okay-dokay then, my work here is done!,” and he saluted and marched back down to the street, where I imagine he had left the rest of his troops and his vehicle of multiple horse-power.

I looked around the room I was in. It was as I remembered from the day before when I had been with my bro-brother to move me in, only to discover that the powerfulness had been severed. My belongings were where we had piled them, ready for me to arrange fashionably. I engaged the electric fire to put some toasty-toast warmth into the polar-like room, and searched out the kettle. With the Narnian like thaw and hot coffee, came my eagerness to make a comfortable night’s sleep possible, and I dressed the bed in fluffy and body warming sheets and duvet. With the remainder of my meagre belongings placed where I thought they best belonged, I left my new Home-From-Home and sought out the nearest Fish and Chippie Shop. My nose could not deceive me, and I found one not a thousand yards away on Eastertime Road. What delicious delicacies they purveyed, and with the most stomach assuring aromas. What other immediate need could a young knight require to reward his dash from oppressive love, towards freedom and previously denied opportunities!