THE LAST RESOLUTION
The loon was in this mountain meadow. Bundled up warmly, he plowed through the snowscape. Safely zipped in a pocket of his parka, his list of New Year’s Resolutions for the year 2009 rested. Nine of the ten vows had been crossed off, accomplished, taken care of. They had been the easy ones, the ones concerning peanut butter, hamsters, tin foil, and robots. Now he was determined to accomplish the last resolution, and there was little time to spare. He raised the binoculars to his loon eyes and focused them with some satisfaction on the topmost branches of the great fir tree where he had seen the hawk glide to a landing.
“Hey, hawk! You call that gliding? Here, this is what you looked like,” said the loon, and he reeled crazily in the snow. “Oh, and you have a red tail. How original. Oh, yeah, and your fierce cry. Oooooh, I’m really scared. ‘Eep! Eep!'”
The loon pulled the mitten from his right hand with his teeth, unzipped a parka pocket, and pulled out a pencil stub and the New Year’s Resolutions. Holding the paper against the binoculars, he carefully crossed out #7, ‘to mock a killing bird’.
I’m smirking.