These Birds Look Weird
I stood staring at a cage filled with very peculiar looking canaries.
Today was my pet snake, Toa's 10th birthday and for his present, I was going to feed him something special. Perhaps a little bird. He was quite a big burmese python.
Just earlier I drove to this local reptile expo hoping to find some baby chickens for feeding. What I actually found was a very peculiar cage of singing canaries.
There were ten of them in total, each with their own (very odd) features. The first ones that caught my attention were two canaries perching on top of a branch in the front of the cage. One of them had a yellow plumage and was strangely blue eyed. It seemed to be screeching loudly at the hazel eyed, red factor canary next to it. In a high corner of the cage I spotted a purple eyed, dark blue canary quietly chirping to an orange one with... Were those piercings. Strange, I've never seen a blue canary before, nor one with piercings all over it. As I looked more closely, I also noticed that the dark blue canary had a small mini paper flower to the side of it's head, kind of like how a girl wears a hair clip. My eye swiveled to a very large, light blue canary with shark-like eyes and three black lines under each of them. It was humbly splashing around in a shallow water dish at the bottom of the cage. Backed up in another corner, perched a sinister looking black canary with red eyes. In fact, it was the only one in the cage that wasn't chirping every so often. At the food dish, I took notice of a half black, half white, green eyed canary. What kind of mutation was that? I thought to myself. A loud screech averted my eyes to another pair of canaries. A sliver canary was violently screeching, no, screaming at a green eyed, dark grey one with... Ok, first an orange one with piercings and now a dark grey one with stitches? The silver one was also buffeting its wings wildly as it was screeching at poor stitches who squawked in displeasure. Forget about the yellow one, this guy looked like he was having a swearing frenzy. The tenth one (and probably the craziest) was a small black canary with a bright orange face and one red eye. Although it was hard to see since it was fluttering around the cage like a overly happy, psychopathic, tweedy bird. Everyone in cage seemed mildly annoyed by the little bundle of black feathers. The grey one even turned to bird swear at it for a few seconds.
Well, the light blue one would certainly be a nice meal for Toa... It looked so unique though. All of them looked so unique. I wouldn't think anybody would want to sell them for mere snake food.
I searched for the price tag. $40.00 for all, a small cardboard sign read, but it didn't say anything about each. After all, I was only interested in the red and yellow one.
I spotted the sales guy slumped down on a metal chair in front of me. Man, he's really not someone you'd see every day. Long black hair, circle shaped iron earrings, pale skin, topped off with long jeans, a leather jacket and shades.
"Umm... Excuse me, would you sell these guys separately?" I asked and pointed to the cage.
"No. Sorry dear, but they come together." His voice was even eerier than his look. It was so raspy I almost winced at the sound of it.
"Oh." Then I though for a second. Maybe I could just buy them all, keep the red and yellow one, and then give the rest to my friends as a gift. We could even come up with names for them together! They'd love that!
"Ok, I'll take them all please." I reached into my pocket and pulled out two, twenty dollar bills. The sales man grinned (a terrible sight).
"Will that be all?" He crooned. I then glanced at small cage of live, healthy looking rats next to the canaries.
"I'll also take one of those big rats too." I added an extra two bucks to the forty. Toa would be happy with just a nice plump rat right?
He took the money in hand and got started packing my canaries in small cardboard boxes. Man, those canaries sure hated him. As soon as he unlocked and opened the little cage door all of the birds started screeching and squirming. The black one with the orange face cried out as it blindly rammed itself straight into the box. The man swiftly grasped the black and white one in mid-flight, tossed it in right behind the black, and closed the box. I pitied green eyes for having to deal with psychopathic tweedy bird for about an hour drive. With another fresh box in hand, he then went for my yellow and red canaries. The yellow was currently having a panic attack over the hand being just inches away from it's perfectly groomed plumage. While the red factor sat patiently perching on the same branch as if happened. Yellow shrieked in alarm as the hand grabbed him. It seemed to turn to the red one and squeak something.
"Help me Sasori my man, yeah!" I heard him cry to the red. My eyes widened. Were my ears playing tricks on me now? Instead of helping, the red factor casually hopped onto the pale arm and glared at the yellow.
"Must you be such an idiot, Deidara?" The red factor replied. I blinked. Ok, now I needed to see the doctor and a psychiatrist. The yellow one just pouted and was tipped into the the box along with the red.
"Excuse me." I interrupted as the woman, uh... man unfolded another cardboard box.
"Yes,"
"What genders are the birds?" I asked.
"There all male except for the dark blue one over there." He answered without looking at me.
Before I knew it, he had all of my canaries and rat in cardboard boxes lined with a few air holes on the sides.
The drive home, was... Loud. Every single one of them chirped and screeched in their crammed tight, cluster phobic, cardboard boxes. Scree, scree, scree. Was basically all I could hear for the first ten minutes of the drive. My ears were just about ready to pop.
"SHUDDUP!" I shouted back, and almost veered into the wrong lane. Curse my stupid sixteen year old driving skills. Surprisingly, all the cardboard boxes fell silent next to my seat. I looked over a little more carefully this time. I immediately regretted it when I saw the grey canaries' head pop out from an air hole and squawked at me.
"Fuck you!" He seemed to say through his half opened beak. I twitched an eyebrow.
"When we get home, I'm ah coat you in pink glitter!" That shut the grey up. He gave one more squawk of protest and slinked his head back into the box.
After that, I called up my best buds, Victoria, Antonietta, Jesse, and Denia. Thankfully, they all answered the phone at the same time.
"Hey, guys! You busy this afternoon?" I began.
"Nope." They all said in unison.
"Great! Meet at my house with a bird cage for a surprise, kay?"
"Wait, why do we need a bird cage?" Antonietta asked. She was so quite I had to press my whole ear against the phone to hear her.
"Cause you're gonna get a bird." Then I hung up, hopefully leaving them with enough cliffhangers for them to actually show up.
I ran my fingers through my dark brown hair and blinked my earthen brown eyes. Those birds sure looked like the Akatsuki. Nah, they're just some weird mutations. I thought.
I arrived at my house about thirty minutes later and saw them all waiting at my doorstep.
"Hey, guys!" I shouted to their backs. They all turned with bird cages in hand. Their hair graciously brushing over their shirts as they turned. Victoria's shoulder length bronze hair reflected light off my mirrors, while Jesse (with her hair a little curlier) and Denia had their gleaming black hair wrapped in ponytails. Antonietta's black hair was straight, long, and had a few braids down along the side. I waved at them.
"Fallonie!" Jesse waved back. My name was actually Fallon.
"Hey," Denia greeted. Victoria and Antonietta just smiled back. I opened the garage door, parked, and jumped out of the car. They all stood in front of the garage.
"So what's the big surprise?" Victoria demanded as she approached. I walked over, opened the other front car door, and gestured to the birds.
"Tada!" I exclaimed. "Happy international friendship week!" Jesse's jaw dropped.
"What are-" Victoria began.
"BIRDIES!" Jesse screamed and lunged with arms outspread for the boxes of... Birdies.
"Whoa, Jess." I stopped her.
"Birdie?" She peeped.
"Let's get birdies inside first."
With a little help from my friends, we managed to get the birds inside. We now sat criss cross in a tight circle on the living room floor.
"Can we see the birdies now?" Jesse pleaded.
"Sure." I said as I opened a cardboard box. My red and yellow canaries looked up and chirped at me. I saw my friends awing at their opened gifts.
"What the?" Victoria commented.
"PRETTY BIRDIE!" Jesse chided.
"Why does this bird have piercings?" Denia cocked her head.
"This is a rat." I took the box from Antonietta.
"Oh, sorry. That's Toa's." I handed her an unopened box at my side.
"Fallon, where did you get these birds." She asked.
"At the reptile expo actually."
"Are you sure they're normal?" Denia put one finger into the box and let the orange bird with piercings perch on top of her finger.
"No, actually. Happy friendship week!" I changed the subject.
"Thanks, Fallon." They all said in unison.
"Your welcome."
"Fallonie!" Jesse gave me one, huge, suffocating hug and let go. I smirked.
"We should name them." Antonietta brought out her pitch black canary with red eyes.
"Fallon, you first." Victoria added.
"Alright." I brought out my yellow and red canary. "I think I'll name the yellow one, Helios and the red one, Aegis. After the sun god and the legendary shield." I announced stoically. I saw Helios puff up his chest and proudly chirped at his new given name. Aegis seemed to be doing what I thought to be, a little birdie smirk."Who's next?"
"I think I'll name these two guys Midnight and Waterfall." Antonietta raised her large light blue bird and her pitch black one on her right and left finger.
"Aqua and Flame." Denia said to the dark blue and the orange one with piercings.
"Silver and Stitches." Victoria added. There was a long pause.
"What are you going to name yours Jesse?" I asked her.
"Candy and Domino!" She squealed happily.
"Candy?" I raised an eyebrow.
"Domino?" Victoria cocked her head.
Candy seemed to be over joyed by his new name and started gleefully hopping on top of Jesse's head and singing loud joyous song. It sounded very much like-
"Good boy, good boy. Candy, is a good boy!" The crazed little bird seemed to chide that over and over again. We all giggled and smiled. Then I noticed something sitting at the bottom of my cardboard box. It was a small slip of paper. I picked it up and let Helios and Aegis perch on my left thigh instead.
"Hey guys, check this note out." I said. Antonietta edged closer.
"Well... What does it say?" Victoria demanded. I read the slip of paper aloud.
"Use these hand signs to release jutsu, then say release after doing hand signs correctly." The slip of paper read. I didn't see any hand signs on the front, so I flipped to the back. I then found pictures of three different hand signs in order from one to three.
"What's that suppose to mean?" Victoria crossed her arms and put on a stern look.
"I don't know, but I guess it's worth a shot." I shifted my shoulders and did the three hand signs in the picture.
"Release." I said at the end. Then a huge could of smoke erupted from my left thigh and spread across the living room. The exact place where Helios and Aegis were perching.
"Whoa!" I yelped and stood up. My friends did the same while letting the birds perch on their shoulders. Sensing that someone was now there, I backed up and drew a combat knife from my right pocket. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Victoria and Antoinette snatch some of my brother's drum sticks off the wooden floor and held them at the ready. Denia reached for my grandpa's old walking cane in the coat closet, while Jesse grabbed some... Towels in the... Bathroom? As the smoke was clearing up I saw the silhouette of two males. One taller with a high... Was that a ponytail? The other shorter with short spiky hair.
