Haiga

New Year’s Banquet

A black bird
from another world descends
from the cloud

A father nutmegs his son, kicks the ball between two leafless gingko trees, which means the father has scored. The father raises his fist in the air like some footballer celebrating. The father checks his wristwatch: it’s nine-oh-five in the morning.

One crow pries open a bin bag, drags it along the slushy tarmac. Bones, rotten leeks and potato peels spill out like innards. More crows descend from the blue: ya-ya, ya-ya! go the birds, which means ‘it’s party time!’ Another bag vomits a few barely eaten apples and the boldest crow picks one up in his curved beak, then takes off. But flying with an apple in your beak is a tricky business; the crow drops it, and the apple hits the dirty slush below.

Another black beak breaks open a bag, and soon millions of tiny polystyrene pieces flutter in the air. Now each car must slow down to weather this plastic blizzard.

Up comes a city bus. As it crawls along one of its tyres picks up the fattest rubbish bag, which gets caught inside the wheel and is carried away from the crows. Haw, haw! go the birds, which means they are cursing the bus. This was the very last bag of goodies – terrible! And the next New Year banquet is so far off.

For the seventh time the father nutmegs his boy. The boy looks like he’s had enough of this. He slumps onto the bench. The father checks his watch: it’s still only nine-twenty-six.