The birds wouldn't stop flapping inside their

The birds wouldn't stop flapping inside their cages. "We've been here since my great-grandfather first opened the shop" he said, with a sense of genuine pride underlying his words

but then an old parrot sitting alone in a cage on the cluttered desk, clucked & said, "All lies. all lies. I was a man like you once before..." The old man rapped his cage. "Quiet!

Old parrot quieted, as commanded, but not out of obediance. No. The old man still had some lessons to learn, still had some dues to pay. Old parrot blinked sagely at the old man

but merely parroted some orientalist tripe about yin and yang. The Old Man had heard it before so he ignored it totally. Instead he produced a cat. A feather fell from the Parrot.

The cat watched the feather fall to the floor, then he shoved his head into the Old Man's armpit and inhaled. "Hey no, you dern cat, get the Parrot!" The cat shoved harder, purring

. "DERN CAT! DERN CAT!" the parrot squawked. The cat, ignoring, crawled up the chest of the Old Man, turned around, and settled into kneading his stomach.

The Old Man chewed absently on his squirrel flavoured hot pocket on a stick while the cat continued to drool all over his shirt. "It doesn't get much better than this," he thought,

fending off two glowing mosquitoes with malformed abdomens. He gazed with a calm joy at the thousands of colors of the radioactive clouds, and kissed the cat, and her conjoined

MRRRRRROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!