windowless study XLVII

It seems Carmichael’s madness knows no bounds. Today there have been tricks-a-plenty. First off, right at the crack of dawn, the whole street was awoken by a hideous braying sound that turned out to be Carmichael’s addled version of the dawn chorus. He was happy as Larry sat beneath the oak tree wrapped up in what appeared to be a pair of curtains. If his wife had still been alive she would have throttled the life out of him but, as she was long gone, he was left to his own devices (his own devices being to bray and carry on to his heart’s content). After breakfast, when his voice was torn to shreds, he disappeared indoors and wasn’t heard from again for a good hour and twenty minutes. When he did finally emerge he wasn’t alone. Under his arm was the biggest chicken you ever saw. He tied the bewildered chicken to the oak tree with several shoelaces of varying colours. He then began spitting at the chicken, rather calmly at first but then, once in his stride, somewhat more viciously. Still nobody stepped in. The poor chicken just had to take it. The humiliating affair would have gone on for much longer had the chicken not somehow, in a very clandestine manner not usually associated with chickens, chewed its way through one of the shoelaces and legged it down the street. Carmichael tried to give chase but all of the crazed spitting had taken its toll and he collapsed in a heap. No sound could be heard from that corpse-like stockpile and everyone thought that old Carmichael had finally bitten the dust but, lo-and-behold, he was back on his feet and sprinting indoors like the best of them. Just as everyone was beginning to forget about Carmichael and return to their own rather uneventful lives he emerged once more and again sat himself beneath the old oak tree. This time instead of a chicken he held a tattered yellow book, which he began reading from back to front, lips moving and eyes darting about like swallows in a hurricane. What a nut.