Magpie

Big sky in a damp mood overhead, confiscating clouds into the
horizon for safe keeping and no day really for being in it all, fogged
and cold.

And Martin, who can never see the funny side, just happens to be in his
big sleek cool top down Jaguar with the red paintwork. Musing whilst
biting his lip on what exactly he's gonna do to the guy who sold him
this car, and while he's at it, to the stupid kid who sent the shopping
trolley into it this morning. The confusing feelings of protectiveness
and hatred toward his new car send his mind reeling even further into
the state of utter anxiety that had gripped him from this
morning.

Being a superstitious man he's very prone to signs and messages.
Because everything is essentially secret it takes an exercise in
interpretation to extract the correct meaning from any given sign; but
his true genius is when it comes to extracting a sign from any given .
. . well, absolutely anything. Signs seem to orbit his existence, dark
and ominous portents of failure and bereavement brooding in the
sinister visages of funeral processions and over-weight cashiers who
look at him with knowing smiles, yes, knowing smiles. Cats are unlucky,
dogs are lucky - usually; heads are good, tails bad; phone numbers that
end in six are wonderful though to end with a nine is hopeless. Martin
will sometimes spend hours crossing the road: two red cars have to come
for it to be absolutely safe. Of course, he is not like this all the
time. Usually he's as normal as anyone else, walking with his head
slightly bowed from the rabbits foot tied to a piece of string around
his neck, and the pendulous swinging of the metal chained horse-shoe
that fell from the horse that nearly ran him down last Easter.

The thing about this morning was the tapping. He was awoken from a
sweaty and unsatisfying sleep to the sound of tapping against the
window. He thought that maybe a bird had flown through the opening and
got caught between the window and the curtains, the noise had that
frantic quality of animal panic to it. So forward he stretched and
annoyed by the inconvenience shoved back the curtain to reveal a sun
already half up the sky breaking gloriously through the trees, clouds
ominously gathering to the north, and a menacing, terrifying beady eye
of a single magpie levelled with his own sleep filled eyes. A single
magpie, the bane of Martin's life. One for sorrow, always sorrow, how
he wished one could be for joy and nine for sorrow; he longed to
rewrite the rhyme. It sat there for a single apocalyptic instant,
strangely static and calm, as Martin expelled a pitiful whining breath
and hoped to wake from some ghastly dream. Extending its long, black,
bony beak it tapped at the glass just once, a single tap, and flew off
into the sun. That single tap resounded like the sound of death itself
in Martin's ears, draining all the life from his limbs so he lay back
crumpled with fear, moaning softly, wordlessly. It was the singularly
most terrifying moment of his life: not only had he seen the dreaded
single magpie, in the morning when there lay a whole day of possible
deaths ahead of him, but the thing had attracted his attention, had
actually chose him. It was like Death coming and knocking on his door;
the sound of death is the sound of animal panic, of course, it made
sense now.

As he regained some strength and managed to expel the dreadful image of
the death-bird from his mind, images of his own demise began flashing
through his head. Plane crashes and murderers, silent stabs in the
back; garrotting in the dark and lurking illness in his body,
heart-attacks and strokes. He saw the face of his own killer slowly
distort and turn black and white like an old picture, then gradually,
gradually, sprout long greasy feathers and a hard brittle beak. He
began to moan again.

So here's Martin, who can never see the funny side, in his big sleek
cool top down Jaguar with the red paintwork, unable to put up the roof
due to some problem or other with the mechanism. The fact that he had
never checked it was not his fault, he just had too much faith in the
honesty of others, he relied too much upon the utter trustworthiness of
all the devious bastards he felt he was surrounded by everyday. The
rain, coming down in sharp grey lines and sending spray up as it hit
the ground, had left Martin sitting in a large puddle of a luxury
leather seat sending his usually impeccable hair into a dishevelled
mess of mud-brown tails. Much to his distress the intricate combing had
been ruined, leaving the bright white spot of scalp that had been
slowly growing on his crown shining out like a small skullcap.
Frantically he moved the sodden hair back into place and just as fast
another cruel gust of wind would come and send it straight back again.
With drips falling from his chin and ears and nose, Martin began to
feel cold and helpless, angry also, fiery tears began to well up in his
eyes as he let out a tiny sob and thought back to the magpie of this
morning. He'd had bad luck already today - could that be all of it? Was
there anymore to come? Of course there was, he knew how it worked, he'd
be lucky to see another day. This thought made further tears force
themselves into his eyes and he began to sob uncontrollably, clutching
hard at the wheel, his bottom lip quivering wetly.

He pulled the car in on the side of the road, and sat for a moment
watching the nasty waves and damp pebbles, thinking how he'd always
hated the seaside. He didn't like the smell, or the open space, or the
crowds of tourists and sticky children that would invade the place on
nice hot days. - Anyway, he knew that fish were unlucky. Beneath the
grey front of a large apartment block he made his way down towards the
sea. Feeling all the eyes on his back from the countless windows he
suddenly began to feel stupid and self-conscious, timid again and not
so brave. Starting to turn back he held firm for a second and decided
to be assertive - he furtively moved down the beach behind a row of
fishing boats, out of view of the looming apartment full of its warm
occupants - bastards!

He hated them now as well. Just one more to add to the list of the
people who had wronged him in some way this morning, and the people in
the apartments were worse as they didn't even know they were doing it -
they didn't even care! Their thoughtlessness appalled him, he had to
remind himself that some people could be considerate, people like
himself.

Under the grim wooden shade of an old worn-out fishing boat he lay his
jacket on the shining stones and sat down heavily, letting the air
expel from his lungs in a fed-up 'humph'. Back to the wind he was
sheltered by the vessel and could look out on the sea that was
gradually increasing in energy as the wind picked up, sending jets of
spray off the tops of the crashing breakers to settle down on his
forehead in a salty film. The sound was tremendous and quite inspiring
to Martin, he felt brave and somehow different, I mean, this wasn't the
sort of thing he usually did, in fact he usually did almost nothing at
all. He was incredibly unlucky from birth.

His parents had died very young, he could hardly even remember their
faces, they had both been astonishingly rich and had left their only
son, their pride and joy, a tremendous fortune in property and
investments. The investments were good. Throughout his childhood, spent
in the luxurious opulence of his grandfather's country estate, he'd
seen the figures of his various accounts double and then triple, until
finally teams of accountants were needed just to handle the finances of
one sickly ten year old boy. The accountants often became riddled with
envious greed; the turnover was high. So, Martin was incredibly
unlucky, right from birth. Right from birth he'd lacked the same
motivations as the other children - he wanted for nothing so did
nothing. Complete financial security was a curse in disguise and no one
could see it but him - in fact, many people refused to show any pity at
all for his plight, they just could not understand the troubles he
faced.

So to sit looking out at the troubled sea and gaze far on the horizon
at the single light of a lonely boat was a new and welcome experience
to Martin. Empowered and invincible he walked down, right down to the
water's edge - then, all of a sudden, remembering the magpie, jumped a
good ten feet back from the sea, though still close enough to feel all
its energy in his own frail limbs. The wind sent his hair in all
directions, though now he no longer cared, head back he looked up at
the thick and murky sky, huge clouds the size of countries jostling for
space, grey on grey on grey. He felt on the edge of some new and
important realisation, a turning point in his life, a day to look back
on, historic in a way.

With the entire ocean in front of him, and beyond that the fantastic
marches of continents and mountains and the whole race of the human
kind living like it always had right there in front of his eyes, he
decided to change. Decided with strength and conviction to no longer
feel trapped by the things around him. He would no longer worry about
world war three and all its radiation death and chemical viral gases in
the lungs. Disease no longer held any fear for him; the wildest of
jungle ailments were no problem in his mind. Murderers with evil
glinting eyes and evil glinting knives seemed to evaporate in an
instant from their hiding places behind fences and trees and his own
front door. Meteorite showers were no longer imminent; lightning was
not about to strike. Waiters in restaurants didn't have murder on the
mind or poison in the pocket. Car crashes that held him in fearful
dreaming silence of blood and death as he passed them on the road were
no longer fatal signs for his own future, they were merely sad events
that had happened to other people. Nobody was out to get him - he knew
this now. You made your own luck and any number of cats crossing paths
or broken mirrors made no difference to him - he was free - he was
alive. From now on he was going to take time to see the wonder, that
the sun is magic, look long at everything and enjoy what he had.

With a smile of complete contentedness he walked through the drumming
rain in a daze of excited expectation, thinking that at any moment some
new opportunity would present itself. Things were going to change. He
cast aside the rabbit's foot and heavy iron horseshoe. Looking at them
where they'd fallen, on the wet and shining stones, it seemed almost
like a biblical image, he was sure that God was looking down. No more
silly superstition and paralysing searches for signs and meanings to
things. He was over that. From now on it was gonna be good.

Coming down to the side of the road he waited for the traffic to let
him across. Impressed with the appearance of his new red Jaguar on the
other side of the street, even in all this damp and dark it shone out
with an air of expensive refinement. Stepping out into the road he
halted for just a second, a thought had struck him, maybe he should
wait for just one red car to pass.