Woods Part 2

Glen sat on the porch steps. He wasn't old enough to live on his own quite yet, but he sure as heck didn't want to live with his parents anymore, so he lived with his sister instead.

It had been hours since he'd talked to Basil, and he knew that his shift ran late sometimes, but never quite this late. This was actually quite ridiculous. Basil must be avoiding him.

Glen stroked the bird sitting in his lap. It cooed affectionately. He frowned as he realized that he'd only met the bird earlier that day. Why was it taking to him so quickly? He wasn't being particularly nice to it. Then again, he wasn't being particularly mean to it, either. He suspected that may be part of why it stuck around him.

Maybe he should just go to the bookstore, see if Basil even left yet. Maybe he had specifically stayed longer to avoid meeting up with him. Whatever the case, it was probably a good idea to head over there and figure it out.

He was just considering to muster up the courage to stand when he heard a creak behind him and a voice said, "Glen." Panicked, he shooed the bird out of his lap, trying to make it look like an unwanted crow had just landed there. He tried to whisper sorry, but Horatio was a fast flier. He worried that the bird might not return, but he couldn't worry about that at the moment.

"Are you doing okay?" asked his sister. She came and sat next to him on the steps, looking at him for a minute before gazing lazily out toward the red sky. "Never mind," she said. They just sat there for a moment, Glen being very confused about why she was out here, when she interrupted the silence again: "Glen."

"What?" he asked. "What is so important you can't figure out how to say it?"

"Why did you take the day off work today? I was worried when you weren't in the house when I woke up, and when I stopped by to ask you about it, they said you'd come in late to call in sick. What's up with that?"

"Uh..." said Glen. "I had sort of a strange night."

His sister sighed, red hair floofing in the breeze her breath created. "I swear, Glen, if you..."

"Golly, what kind of a person do you take me for? One mistake and I never hear the end of it!"

There was the flapping of wings as the bird fluttered back and settled on Glen's shoulder. His sister looked at it with a hint of disgust. "You... seem awfully calm... for having such a thing on your shoulder, Glen."

"Hm?" he said, then realized that Horatio was on his shoulder. "OH! Um..." He didn't really know what to do. "Well, uh..."

"'Bluh- bla, uh, um' -- holy hell, boy, you stutter quite a lot!" shouted the bird. It turned to look at Glen's sister. "Why, hello, I almost didn't see you there. This guy's hair takes up half the planet. And what, might I ask, is your name?"

Glen's sister gasped, her face turning red. "What IS this?"she shouted. She stood up quickly, pressing her body against one of the posts that the held up the roof of the porch. She seemed genuinely freaked out now.

Glen hurriedly scooped up Horatio, mumbled about going to Basil's, and ran down the street.

Should he have run like that? Surely, his sister would be worried sick for his, or worse, her own, health. Birds don't talk. They just don't. What would his sister think of him now? What would he do tomorrow? How could he deal with this mess he was digging himself into?

"What the hell was that?" asked Horatio, sounding genuinely offended by how Glen had taken off. "Why would she react that way? How impolite of both of you!" He began flapping his wings, but he was under Glen's jacket again and wasn't getting anywhere.

Glen stopped running, and pulled Horatio out of his coat. "Listen!" he said. "Birds don't talk! You speaking to people makes them question reality! It makes them feel unsafe! And nobody likes feeling unsafe!"

"You wanna know somethin', punk? People didn't used to talk either. Least, I never understood them walking pink fleshy things. Until this morning. Friggin' everyone talks now. What the hell. You think I don't understand them scaredycats? Nah. They just don't understand me." With a nod, he climbed back into Glen's jacket.

"Huh. Strange things are happening everywhere, I suppose," said Glen, unsure of what else to say. "Maybe we should go talk to Basil and get at least some of this sorted out."

"Maybe we should," pouted Horatio from somewhere in the cozy comfort of Glen's coat.

"Fine then," said Glen, walking again, "that's exactly what we'll do."

But he was stopped as a tiny chipmunk ran in front of his feet. It wasn't clear how he interpreted it, but he figured out that it was trying to get his attention.

"Excuse me," squeaked the tiny little thing. "You wouldn't by any chance be Glen, would you?"

"Well, er," stuttered Glen. "Yes, I suppose I am. Who, if I may wonder, is asking?'

"Never mind who," chittered the chipmunk. "You're wanted in the forest."





Part 2, complete! Woodland creatures are cute, adorable, and have great character, don't they?

Anyway, I hope you're liking it so far. I'm having a ton of fun with it. There's a lot more room for character diversity and I can have them do literally anything. Freedom is fun.

That's it, I guess. My main point was to post this.

But hey, if you want, you could check out this art blog my sister and I made on Tumblr: cataastrpohe-gaa.tumblr.com. That's a thing I've been spending time working on. Also, for little over a week, I was staying in the mountains where there was terrible internet connection. It was really hard to type anything up. So I just waited to finish this until I got back. And now, I'm back! Yippee!


~Polar