I woke up at dawn. I had no choice really, a mosquito was harassing me and I finally got sick of it and got up to put an end to it altogether. I was at wits end with the mosquito and was going to murder it. I stood up and looked for the mosquito, but he was craftier than I anticipated and got away.
I opened the window in hopes that the mosquito might fly out. I was standing there looking for him when I heard the cackling sound of a bird outside. I recognized the sound to be that of the elusive L.A. green parrot. I couldn’t see the bird, but I heard it. I stood quietly at the window and tried to put proximity of sound to bird. I searched the trees, but I didn’t see anything. I finally saw something move in the loquat tree in my neighbor’s backyard. There were five or six parrots snacking on loquats. They landed on the top branches of the tree and were peacefully eating in the faint morning light. I studied them while they ate. They were beautiful. It was rare to get such a good look at them. I was standing perfectly still so not to scare them off. The birds were plucking fruit from the tree and messily eating, the seeds from the loquats were falling to the ground. If somebody told me I was going to wake in the morning and see parrots, I would have thought them crazy. But there they were, right in front of me, a couple of miles from downtown Los Angeles.
Then the mosquito resurfaced and started to hover near my face. I waved my hand in front of my face to scare him off, but he kept coming at me. He was relentless. I swatted at him again intent on killing him, but I missed. The parrots saw my hand as it moved past my face, and quickly flew away. The fun was over.
I turned the radio on and lay in my bed. There was a radio show called Gospel Sunday on. The sound of gospel singing overtook me. It was joyful, optimistic, soothing. I fell asleep.
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