A regular Sunday morning. As usual my whole family gathers together. I'm not sure when this tradition started, it’s farther than my own memory, or even the memory of my parents.
Uncle Sam jumped up again and again on the far right, screaming: “You know what I did on Thursday guys, you know what I did on Thursday?” until my mom, who is at the very farthest left, had to shout to him: “No, we don’t Sam. Tell us”. And that’s when he couldn’t control his excitement anymore, and both saying and laughing so hardly while flapping his wings: “I pooped on the Prime Minister’s head. I pooped on his head”. “Oh, did you?”, aunty Carol exclaimed, with her startling face that even makes Sam more excited. But grandma Jenny stepped in: “You did it again Sam. You know you are a mature bird now, don’t you? Don’t let they think badly about us birds son”. However, a hidden smile could still be recognized on her face. For her, Sam is forever her little boy, that no matter what he's done, she would always accept and protect him.
“But, but, you know how useless he is, don’t you ma? He’s made this whole country such a mess. Look at what he’s done for the economy”. “Oh, don’t say you’re gonna talk politics again Sam. We did agree that we would never talk about it, didn’t we?”, aunty Carol complained. She’s my grandma’s first daughter, so she’s sometimes considered as the 2nd most powerful lady in the world, ... rightly. “I know sis”, Sam said, quite sad no one’s joined him in this little act he did enjoy himself doing. “But you see how it’s affected even Rona’s living, don’t you sis?”. With these words, Sam made us all sad. Rona is an old lady who, together with her old dog, regularly goes to the park with a bag of bread she buys from a local Aldi and gives to us. Recently she’s come here much less, and whenever she’s here we could sense the effects the difficult living condition - in her depressing look, her rare smile, and even her slow tired walk.
Talking about her, aunty Carol has some tears in her eyes. Yes, these people, poor as they are, are the most caring people in the world. She remembers once hearing some guys discussing about a person named Bill Gatt, a billionaire (she doesn’t really know what this word means, but they did emphasize how much money he has). They said that if that guy sees a hundred dollar note, he wouldn’t stop, because he makes more money in a second than stopping for that. They all had a good laugh about that, the laugh that seems to contain a strong sense of bitterness to her. She doesn’t really know whether that story is true, but a more simpler thing she knows is that in her whole life, she’s never seen any guy like that Bill Gatt coming to the park and feeding her species.
Anyway, her flow of thought was annoyed by her daughter, Ana, who completely ignored the conversation and focusing instead on checking and correcting the feathers near her bump. Aunt Carol knew too well that it’s all for Luke, a fierce young male bird that recently joined them in this park, always bragging about those adventures he’s taken. But I guess it's a story for another day.
Aunt Carol said to Ana: “Girl, you shouldn’t worry too much about your feathers and your bump. Your look is not everything ... Right, Dan?”. Her husband, whose eyes are following a bump of a young chick who’s just flew near them, suddenly got caught up by his wife’s question. “Eh hem, yes, of course darling. Sweetheart, your mommy is right, your look doesn’t mean anything”. And somewhat embarrassing with what he’s just said, he corrected himself: “Or at least it doesn’t mean that much”.
And the conversation went on.
