Alice & the Parrot

For a minute or two Alice stood looking at the crumbling wooden shed, wondering what to do next, when a voice squawked, "Hello Polly!"

At once, Alice realised the voice was coming from inside the shed. So she opened the door and poked in her head to see a large parrot, dressed in black with a white collar around his neck. "Hello Polly!" it squawked again.

"I'm not Polly, I'm Alice." She said. "Prove it." Replied the parrot. "Why should I need to prove it? I know very well what my name is." She insisted as she took a step inside.

"Hurry up and sit down." He squawked, "You're getting in the way." Alice squeezed herself inside the small shed and looked back. "In the way of what?" She said.

"The congregation." He said, flapping a wing.

Alice joined the parrot as he gazed at the empty doorway, waiting for a congregation to appear. The door creaked in the wind. "There's nobody there." She concluded, finally.

"Prove it." He said, in exactly the same way as he had said it the time before. Alice wondered how anyone might prove that anything wasn't there and decided one couldn't. Or perhaps one shouldn't be bothered. After all, the day would be very long indeed if one had to provide a proof for all the things that weren't there.

"Well, can you see anyone?" She asked. He peered at the doorway with one eye and then turned his head to look with the other, "Of course I can't see anyone. Shall we begin?"

"Begin what?" Said Alice, innocently.

"Today's sermon, you silly Polly." Before Alice could get annoyed, the parrot turned to look down at a dusty old book which lay open before him, first with one eye and then the other. "Well, if everyone is settled, I shall begin."

"Would you like me to turn the pages for you?" She asked. "No need, no need." The parrot insisted. "Now, can we get on?" He raised a beady eye and narrowed it at her. Even so, Alice had no intention of being patronized by a parrot. "You've got no hands."

"Of course I've got hands," he said. "No you haven't, you're a parrot." She said, folding her arms across her chest. "What are these, then?" He asked, rolling an eye and shaking his head.

"Wings." said Alice firmly.

The parrot considered each raised appendage carefully. Both were covered in beautiful green and yellow feathers. Then he slowly turned a tiny black eye to Alice and squawked, "Prove it."

Parrots can be very tiring, thought Alice, as she hurried out of the damp shed into the warm sunlight of a bright and wonderful morning.