As a vehicle tethered to a cage-like garage tucked somewhere unimportant in my owner’s college town, I was happy to break free for the day. Maybe I’d park myself at the beach for the afternoon, get some people-watching in, roll down my windows and give that Santa Monica Pier Chevy Corvette with serious abandonment issues and a big trunk a honk or two.
My owner’s sister was in town for the weekend, so I knew to expect a few refills between here and there. But I didn’t realize I’d have to carry the pair from Los Angeles through Malibu, past Morro Rock and along the perilous Pacific Coast Highway all the way to a little place called Monterey. You know, when you’re trying to navigate the cliffs of doom, trying to keep from slipping and crashing and falling to your death, it’s not so easy to just appreciate those blue skies and oceans humans can’t quit yapping about.
It’s clear these two didn’t expect the day to turn into night, either. Both were dressed in beachwear or sleepwear and, if I can be honest, both could have used a midday shower. I tried to sputter but they couldn’t hear me over the never-ending Pet Sounds album and smoke in the air. Californian clichés. I miss the South.
Sometime around the 7-hour mark of this tiresome trek, I was getting properly irritated. We’d been following the moonlight after my owner’s cellular connection gave out before they spotted a sign for Salinas.
I was under the impression by now that the duo would grab a bite and find a bed and breakfast in nearby Monterey, a bayside town best known for a new television show, according to these idiots. Had they forgotten about Steinbeck? Cannery Row? Whatever.
“Should we go back after dinner?” the sister asked, which prompted an involuntary, somewhat dramatic halt on my part and a squeal on hers.
“Whoops, sorry. Yeah, I have work in the morning. We’ll drive back in a couple hours!” my owner said.
You gotta be kidding me. Why would you even put that in his head? Why would he agree? I’m irked, y’all.
And then, that’s when it happened. I could sense it, you know. I could sense the bird following me since our brutally brief pit stop in Soledad.
My owner stepped out, and she followed, dressed in nothing but a thin white swimsuit coverup and $5 flip-flops. As she walked behind him toward the Row—plop. All. Over. Her. Face. I swear I heard Pigeon Man Pete snicker as he let loose not once, not twice but three times in the span of 20 seconds.
She’d take a step and boom. A shriek. Another step, plop. Another shriek. By the time she reached the entrance of a pharmacy desperate for a bathroom, she was smothered in, well, shit. My owner was cackling a few steps to the right, understandably keeping his distance.
Pigeon Man Pete tipped the brim of his hat toward my dimming headlights and flew back toward the moon. Time for a power nap before the halfwits need me again.
—fiza
Prompt from Kiese Laymon with #TheIsolationJournals, a 30-day creativity project to help make sense of these challenging times. Join in!
What’s the funniest thing that happened to you last year? Write a paragraph from the point of view of an inanimate object that bore witness to it. Could be your hat. Could be your wedding ring, a streetlamp or the plant in the corner of the bar. Use as much sensory/sensual language as possible to describe the memory from that object’s perspective.
Love this!