Once in a while I’ll turn to a writing prompt to give me a nudge when I’m blocked, and today I went to writing.com. The prompt that came up was “Write about the number 3.”
For Christians, 3 is a holy number, one that represents the trinity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit/Ghost.
For writers, public speakers, comedians, and psychologists, there is a Rule of Three: Humans recognize patterns and the smallest pattern they recognize is a pattern of three, so giving them ideas in threes is interesting to them and easy for them to remember.
Johnny Depp’s lucky number is 3, and he has it tattooed on his hand. I read somewhere that it represents how a man and a woman make a child so that there are three, and that he believes three is a magical number, though I don’t know how true any of that is.
Years ago, Peter Criss wore a 3 on the back of his KISS outfit to signify that he was the third member of the band. As he was the third member to join, that makes sense, but again, I don’t know how true that is.
Then there’s the ol’ ménage à trois, the sexual threesome, which may or may not be followed by a love triangle.
Three is special for me for another reason. It’s the number of fangs I have. In addition to the usual two big canines, I have one that descends from the roof of my mouth just behind my two front teeth, right before I’m about to feed. It’s annoying at times, but it does help me drain my vessels faster than others of my kind—something that comes in handy when you’re at risk of being seen. Perhaps it’s evolution.
I took the photo above at Powązki Cemetery in Warsaw, Poland last month. I was struck by how ivy had blanketed the graves, turning them into earthen beds where two souls lie in eternal slumber. I’m not a romantic by a long shot, but the way the ivy came together in the middle, as though this husband and wife had reached out to one another and joined together even in death, brought a tear to my eye.
Thought I’d wrap up this week’s tales of weirdness at various apartments by saying that nothing unpleasant has ever happened where I live now. Anything that has happened here that one could consider otherworldly has come from Inigo.
I’ve chronicled his passing and a few of the early signs of his continued presence on this website, but I’ve felt his presence here many, many times. I feel it the strongest when I’m in the living room playing games on my tablet or goofing off coloring with the TV on in the background. Sometimes I feel him pretty strongly when I’m in his bathroom, the guest bathroom where I used to give him baths. He loved that bathroom and loved getting spritzed with a water bottle there. And he comes to visit in dreams. Every night I tell him and another birdie I once had, Jimmy the Green Cheek, to come and visit if they like and have no important birdie business to attend to, and sometimes they take me up on it.
I feel Inigo’s presence in all kinds of places, too: On a line at a salad shop when one of his favorite songs came on the speakers (“Wake Me Up,” by Avicii and Aloe Blacc); in Warsaw just before a Poets of the Fall concert started, during a recorded intro by Marko Saaresto where at one point he talks about loved ones; on walks either alone or with friends; and while I write, especially about Inigo himself. He loves hearing how wonderful he is, heh.
There is still grief, however. There are times when my heart breaks all over again for missing his physical presence—the softness of his feathers, the warmth of his little body when he sat on my chest as we watched TV together, the spiciness of his scent, the silliness of our conversations. They say grief comes in waves, and every now and then the waves feel like a tsunami. One night it was particularly bad and I went over to his house and picked up the little towels he once slept upon to see if they still smelled like him. The far corner where he used to sleep was warm. Just the corner, the spot where he would hunker down and pull back the edges to make a little pillow to rest his chin. The rest of the towels were cool, and only the one on top was warm. It was like he had just been there a moment before. That has only happened once since then, so I leave the towels there and the cage door open in case he wants to come and hang out. He loved to hang out on the door, too.
Inigo, just hanging out being a happy, curious bird.
Overall, this is a pretty clear apartment, though. It had a happy vibe when I first came to look at it. I believe the tenants before me came in as a couple and moved out as a family of four. It looked like my home office was once a nursery, and a toddler had drawn on one of the walls. There are still faint vestiges of chalk drawings on the bricks on the balcony, too—hearts, happy faces, and stick figures. The landlord installed new flooring and new fixtures and appliances for me, too.
One of those fixtures did give me a fright one night, however. Imagine watching a ghost-hunting show and this happens:
Yep, the water just turned on by itself. It kept happening, which is how I was able to take a video of it, and I figured out that pulling the handle forward when I turned off the faucet would prevent it. That was last November, and I just keep forgetting to have someone from maintenance look at it. Plus, I tested it over the summer and nothing happened, so it’s probably some sort of part that contracts in the dry winter air and needs to be replaced.
zenzalei 