‘Eep’ it went. ‘Eep Eep’ again.

‘What on earth is making that noise Keith thought?

‘Eeeeeeeeeep’ it went again. This time just a teensy little bit louder and longer.

Keith looked down at the pavement and there was a little bird up to it’s beak in snow in the gutter. It had been snowing all night long.

The little bird was now looking intently at him and eeping away incessantly and loudly.

‘Ee-eep, Peep, eep eep eep’ it said.

‘Oh my God, it’s talking to ME’. He thought.

‘I don’t understand you little one’ he said back as if it could actually understand or reply.

‘Help me Keith’ it said.

‘Pardon’ came Keith’s shocked response.

‘Oh for God’s sake, will you help me. I’ve been here for a whole morning and no-one has fed me and I’m starving and up to my beak in snow’.

Keith was rooted to the spot with incredulity.

‘EEEEEEEP’ it shouted. ‘Are you going to help me or not’?

‘Er, ok’ came Keith’s hesitant reply. (Well it’s not everyday little finches talk to humans now is it?)

‘What is wrong with you’? it said as it tried to hobble or hop its way throught the snowy gutter. ‘Why won’t you help your partner’?

‘Partner’? said Keith.

‘Yes, partner’ came the reply. ‘It really is me’. said Bahkti. ‘I’ve been ‘Finched’. He said.

‘Finched’? asked Keith.

(‘Oh God, this is going to take a long time’ thought Finch/Bahkti, with increasing annoyance)

‘Yes’, he snapped back. ‘Why do you think I look like this and am not at home as a human then’?

‘I wondered why you weren’t there this morning and thought you had gone to work or gone shopping and weren’t answering your mobile phone’!

‘I got up to go to the market and was walking through the market square to go to the bank machine and WHOOMP!

‘Whoomp’? said Keith.

‘Yes, Whoomp. It went dark and there was suddenly a whirring and a clicking and a whoomping and a boing and whallop and I was in the light again and I was a little bird’ said Finch/Bahkti.

‘What did it’? asked Keith, still in shock from talking to a bird (in English) with a hobble.

‘A Finching Machine’. snapped Finch/Bahkti.

‘A Finching Machine? enquired Keith hesitantly but trying to sound as it were a normal everyday occurence.

‘Yes, a Finching Machine. They are cat like in hunting their prey and they sneek up on things or people and leap on top of them from a great height and encompass them inside it and turn whatever they’ve jumped on, into a Finch’. (but keeping the thing’s redeeming features ie: a Mohican hair cut or a hearing aid, or a zimmer frame or curlers etc) Finch/Bahkti said.

‘You call a hearing aid or a mohican, a redeeming feature’? Keith enquired with a most puzzled tone.

‘Don’t start with me, just bloody feed me will you and we’ll talk about the finer details later’ Finch/Bahkti snapped back.

‘I’ll buy you a lard ball stuffed with seeds. How does that sound’? Keith offered sarcastically.

‘OO, a lard ball. I can’t remember the last time I had a lard ball. Nobody has ever bought me anything nice like a lard ball before’. said Finch/Bahkti. (as if it were the most normal thing in the world, never mind he was a bird and talking English). ‘OO, a lard ball, how divine’ he said.

‘Ok, come home with me and we’ll get you warm and I’ll pop out to the pet shop for lunch’.

So up hopped little Finch/Bahkti into Keith’s warm gloved hand and off they went home to get warm.