The Captain And The Sea Gulls

The Captain and the Sea Gulls

You look familiar, Are you sure we haven’t met before?” Asked the young 20 something female letting agent.
“You might have seen me on TV a few times.”
“Yes I remember now you were the captain of the ill fated Bellygrad, which sank just of the English coast.”
“Not my finest hour, I admit. The weather was bad and I misjudged how close we actually were.” Said the eighty four year old man sitting on a sofa.
“You have a good memory, as that accident was nearly twenty years ago.”
“Not really there was a program about it just a few weeks ago-a repeat- I think”
The woman suddenly looked to the window at a rather large sea gull which just sat staring with its beady eyes, just sitting and staring.
“Sir, if I can give you one piece of advice it is, whatever you do don’t open the window, you see. I have a sixth sense about things and I fear that bird out there means you harm and ill will, it’s just an intuitive feeling.”
Ex-captain Rupert didn’t know what to say, I don’t believe in any hocus-pocus he thought.
The woman left and ex-captain Rupert was left in the stuffy flat on a hot summer’s day. He picked up a book-an historical novel-set in medieval times and started to read, after a short while he noticed the seagull was still outside his window, not moving an inch just staring.
I wish that stupid sea gull would bugger of its giving me the creeps.
Afternoon turned to evening and the flat got more and more stuffy and the heat more and more stifling by the minute. To hell with that woman’s superstitious nonsense, he thought and got up an opened the window, the cool sea breese which wafted in was a pure joy and cooled him instantly.
“Shoo!” he said to the sea gull which still stood there implacably unmoved, he motioned with his hand but the sea gull took no notice.
Stupid bird! He thought.
Soon evening turned to night and the ex-captain Rupert got his old frail form of the sofa and slowly on unsteady legs made it to his bed in the other room.

#

The scene was pure carnage. Hundreds and thousands of sea gulls lay dead and dying just of the coast, all imbued by the oil which had spilled form the ship-the ship that he-Rupert was the captain of.
It was a simple mistake to make, in bad weather the captain had under estimated how close to the coast they actually were and the ship had hit a rock.
Hundreds and thousands of tons of black crude out had leaked poisoning and killing all the surrounding wild life but among them the sea gulls were the ones which suffered the most.

#
Rupert awoke to the noise of flapping wings. In the dark he could barley see anything. He could still feel the cool breese flowing in through the open window.
Rupert felt something land on the blanket covering him. He pulled his hand out of the blanket and touched the thing on his chest; his hands felt a sticky oily substance and from the smell he knew what it is was...crude oil? A bird with crude oil on it?
Rupert saw again the image that he had seen many years ago that had never left him, hundreds and thousands of dead seagulls, as far as the eye could see.
You slaughtered us! The words interrupted his thoughts and came to his mind unbidden. You slaughtered us in the hundreds and thousands, just because you were careless!
Now we will have our revenge!
What? No!
There was the sound of more flapping wings, which got louder and more and more frequent, Rupert couldn’t see in the dark but realised there must be more then a dozen birds in his small room and they started to peck…peck …peck!
No! Not my eyes! Rupert’s fragile body was unable to ward of the birds
Peck…peck…peck, The birds drew blood, he felt a beak strike his eye and he was
suddenly blinded and in unimaginable pain. All the female letting agent would see next morning would be the dead body of a fragile old man covered in a black thick sticky substance that had been pecked to death.