CHESTER'S REVENGE
On a fine morning, Chester sat on his singing perch singing his morning song. He whistled and chirped to the outside birds and the outside birds answered with their wild melody.
From time to time, Chester would lean over and tinkle his little silver bell just to let the outside birds know that he was a parakeet of sophistication and taste.
The morning serenade was reaching its end and Chester was just starting a complex patterns of whorls and clicks when the neighbor children ran by the open window, screaming to each other and drowning out his song.
The children passed first one way and then the other; their racket rising and falling with each pass. The outside birds flew up to higher branches of the tree.
Once the noisy children had moved down the block, the outside birds settled back in to the bushes and hedges near Chester's window. He had chootled out the first notes of his song when the roar of a car and the blast of simulated music, once again, quieted all of the birds.
The car sat in front of the house across the street filling the neighborhood with its din. After two honks of the horn and the slamming of two doors, the car squealed away up the street.
The day was slipping away and Chester had yet to finish his morning song. The outside birds had settled again. Chester tinkled his bell in a telling way, before he fluffed himself up and readied for the final bars of his melody.
In the kitchen, the phone rang out a demanding ring, once, twice and then three times. One electronic voice answered another as fabulous rates were offered for limited time service.
The outside birds did not come back and Chester knew that the morning was too far gone for morning singing. The outside birds would go and rest in their cool, daytime places until evening.
He still had his morning song stuck stuck in his throat as he climbed up to his thinking perch. While tinkling quietly on his thinking bell, a solution came to him.
The people world was too noisy. All they wanted was to hear themselves; their false music, their machines, their harsh voices.
While all the while, there were bird songs and bells that were being drowned out. Chester decided to give them a noise that they would remember forever.
He opened his door cautiously, looking left and right for the two cats. They were sprawled in the sun with their eyes squeezed shut. Chester flapped his wings twice, as quietly as he could, and glided to the desk where the telephone sat.
He pressed each button carefully with his beak. Chester concentrated hard on the words he wanted so that he would sound like one of the people. He replied to the answering voice, “Chester wants a giant bell.”
Chester had much to do as he waited for the bell. He fluttered and dove around the rooms snatching things as the, now, wide awake cats swatted and leapt at him. They could not catch the green bird.
Chester snatched wires and he grabbed a battery. He picked a cylinder out of the junk drawer and he pulled a panel across the room, under a pouncing cat.
When everything was collected back in the safety of his cage, Chester sorted it and lined it up in the right order. A soft hum came from the cylinder and a buzz flickered from the panel.
Chester walked through the cylinder and came out the other side, followed by himself. The two Chesters looked at each other and then strode through the tube again. Now four Chesters chirped to each other as they formed a line to go through once again.
At three dozen, the cage was packed with Chesters. When there were a dozen dozen, green birds spilled out the doors and flapped to the tops of the lamps and bookshelves away from the prowling cats.
A constant line of parakeets tailed each other through the humming tube. When there were a dozen hundreds of birds chirping throughout the rooms, the cats slunk away to hide under the bed
A tractor trailer pulled up outside the house and a hundred hundred Chesters turned to look at the giant bell. It hung from poles that were as high as the tree tops and glistened silvery in the afternoon sun.
The humming and buzzing in the cage continued through the afternoon until Chesters were perched on Chesters and huddled ten deep on everything.
The sun fell and the giant bell turned from silver to bronze in the fading light. Ten million tiny birds waited for a chance to swarm out the door and tinkle the bell.
The peal from the bell would ring out through the world and deafen all the people. The Chesters knew that there would be no more need for telephones or noisy cars with blaring stereos or screaming children. The whole world would be quiet for there songs.
The doorknob turned and the door of the house opened as the people returned from work. The outside birds had just returned for their evening song as a cloud of fluttering green streamed out the door.
In unison, dozens of millions of tiny feet landed on the giant bell. All of the Chesters started to chootle their evening song.
The bell swing to one side with the weight of the parakeets. The clapper leaned one way, just inches from the bell. Then the bell swung back.
In the midst of a dozen million chirps and whistles, the bell struck and the world went silent.