Character: Police station clerk
Action: Tightening a knot
Setting: A meeting for a subversive group
Prop: Decorative songbirds made from vinyl records
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Flipping the Bird
by Writers with No Name
“So,” Cliff picks up a molded vinyl Chickadee from a long row of metal shelving and flips it in the air. “What’s with the fucking birds?”
Howard slumps in his metal chair. “My wife made them. It’s why I called the meeting.”
“Jesus, Howard, you want me to buy some birds, all you got to do is fucking ask. Why you got to bring me here off-hours?”
Cliff swings his head to take in the long rows of neatly tagged and bagged evidence. Darryl picks up one of the decorative songbirds and turns it over, scanning it in silence. Like ebon origami, the bird is a delicately folded and stretched vinyl record, softened in boiling water. The label – Charlie Parker with String – is somehow still intact.
Filed under: 2012 Submissions | Tagged: Brian Reid, Jason LaPier, Portland, prizes, short story, Sledgehammer, Wes Boyd, writing contest | Leave a comment »
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