The naked parrot looked like a human fetus spliced onto a kosher chicken. It was so old it had lost every single one of its feathers, and its bumpy , jaundiced skin was latticed by a network of rubbery blue veins. "Pathological," muttered Fritters, meaning not simply the parrot but the whole scene, including the shrunken old woman in whose footsteps the bird doggedly followed as she moved about the darkened villa. Peering through the gloom, Fritters watched the bird stoop every few shuffled paces to pick something off the floor with its beak and shove it into a small bag trailing from its right wing.

Intrigued, he started to move closer, squinting for clarity. Was the plucked bird picking up its own feathers? As he mulled this over, attention diverted from his movements, Fritters knocked over the fake banana tree masquerading as a hat stand. "Sorry!" he mumbled, diving to retrieve it. "Don't worry", replied the parrot. "Everyone does it." The parrot was looking at him as it said this, and Fritters was momentarily stunned at how human the parrot's features were without it's feathers.
"Here, I believe this is what you're after" said the old woman, after rummaging through her closet. Fritters looked up, while his jaw went in the opposite direction. "Why, its....its..." he stammered. "I thought I lost my professional writing reader" he exclaimed. The old woman smiled at him. "You did, but I found it and popped it in there for you!". "Thanks" he said. "Just one question" he said.
She cocked her head and gave him a beady eye - "Yes?"
"What happened to it?". Fritters shot her a look of some perplexity as he flicked through the pages of the book. Detailed, written notes in scrawly hand snaked in, around, through the text. "I was thinking on paper. Sorry your book got in the way" "I doubt you'll find it terribly interesting," she continued. "Sometimes even I didn't enjoy it." Then she smiled, just a little. "But I promised I'd always pay attention when he spoke. And this was my way to keep focused." "Bollocks!!" sneezed the parrot, interrupting the awkward silence that had suddenly filled the room. And that was the bird's last word as it dropped forwards on to its face, dead.
Fritters needed some air. And then some. He grabbed his inhaler from his jacket pocket and took a deep pull. The familiar gaseous explosion was both comforting and strangely revolting. Fritters peered suspiciously at the old woman through the dissipating haze. What was that she said? Pay attention when who spoke? The parrot? Crazy old woman.
He flicked through the pages again, this time paying close attention to what was scrawled there. What was that... he flicked back... what the hell?! Fritters felt the world around him begin to swim, and it wasn't doggy paddle.

	Amongst the inky meanderings in the margin, a line had caught his eye. Well, it hadn't so much caught his eye as lunge menacingly at it. Fritters instinctively fingered his inhaler for comfort, then cleared his throat. [2 votes]
	If anything, it was that weird stroke that's half freestyle, half backstroke, where the swimmer appears to corkscrew through the water. [2 votes]

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