Chasing The Enemy [FICTOID]

The demon parakeet escaped.

“Polly wants a cracker NOW!” it roared.

The ancient priest followed it around the cathedral, trying to catch it with a net made with threads from the Shroud of Turin.

“C’mon, let’s go,” he said.

“Never!”

“You’ve had your fun -- “

“Ha!  You don’t know what fun is!” roared the demon bird.  “All you do is moan and pray all day.  Moan-moan-moan, pray-pray-pray.”

The ancient priest swung the net -- and missed.

“Is that the best you can do?” the demon bird sneered.  If it could curl its beak it would have.

It flew off, the ancient priest hard on its heels (if a flying parakeet could be said to have any heels at all).

“This is my destiny!” the parakeet started singing.  “To be free!  To be me!  To see what I can see!”

An elderly woman -- old enough to be the priest’s grandmother -- knelt in prayer.  As deaf as a post, she heard nothing of the chase through the cathedral.

The demon parakeet saw her and -- while parakeets really don’t have lips -- metaphorically licked his at the thought of tormenting an innocent bystander.

“Whoops!  Here we go!” said the parakeet, diving at the old lady.

He dove under the hem of her skirt and the old lady began shrieking immediately.

However, what the demon parakeet failed to consider was the huge purse the old lady packed -- a huge purse with a genuine horseshoe in it she carried for luck, superstitious soul that she was.

WHAM!

And the hits just kept coming as she relentlessly hammered the bird.

By now the winded priest caught up to the parakeet.  Of the demon bird nothing remained except feathers and ash.

“Oy,” said the priest.

© Buzz Dixon