Kickass and the Call of the Sandhill Crane by Bill Stokes

Attribution: Andrew C, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

By Bill Stokes

Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports that the keeper and Phyllis will be unavailable for social and business contacts as they closet themselves in their Audubon unsanctioned work to perfect the “unison cough” as in the mode of the sandhill cranes unison call.

While the cranes’ unison call occurs at a time of nest building and reproduction, the keeper and Phyllis have no such motivation, and in fact their unison cough seems to confer on them a vague sense of separation, which is not all bad in that it allows them to practice their unison cough while in separate rooms.

As the cranes’ unison call is seasonal, signifying spring with all of its joys and excitements, the keeper and Phyllis’s unison cough can be heard for god-knows-how-long, perhaps throughout the entire winter, and signifies the ineffectiveness of all cough/cold remedies and an inclination on the keeper’s part to accompany each cough with a curse, something Phyllis considers unnecessary but seems to enhance the keeper’s sense of participation.