Thump

Thump, thump, thump. I had just woken up, and was staggering around the kitchen when I heard it. The unmistakable sound of feet on the roof. Thump, thump. I knew it well from the old place where I lived, where a stream of workmen would thump across the top of the building, especially in the last dying days of the tenancy as the developers moved in to unleash all-encompassing renovations.

It sounded like someone was walking across the back verandah roof. But now? Why? Who could it be? Wouldn’t they have told me if some repairs needed to be done? Hell, wouldn’t I have been the one to request it?

I took a breath and opened the back door to look out (and up).

A bird. A small bird stomping around on the flimsy corrugated plastic verandah roof, picking at a fallen cumquat from the nearby tree.