I submitted two pieces for the March 2025 issue of Moss Piglet:
The Barber’s Bulbul
Two years ago, my wife and I moved to a house in San Sai Noi, a residential area in the Chiang Mai province of northern Thailand. A fifteen minute stroll from my front door brings me to my barber and my monthly haircut.
Waiting customers can sit on the low, beat up, black sofa and glue themselves to their phones. Or be badgered for pets by the perpetually half-shaved shih tzu that regularly emerges from under the sofa. Or enjoy the attentions of the sooty-headed bulbul that chitters and sings from the small trees potted inside the shop.
The bird is a relatively recent acquisition; I was taken aback when I first saw it. And even more so when it introduced itself to me by flying onto my leg, then my shoulder, and finally my head. It stuck it’s beak in my ear and under my watch band, presumably looking for bugs. I don’t think it found any. The crown of my watch was found to be an uncrackable nut and quickly abandoned. And try as he might, he wasn’t able to free threads from my shirt. Mostly.
“He likes you!”, said the smiling barber.
You might be tempted at this point to reach for the internet browser of your choice and search for “sooty-headed bulbul”. You’ll be shown pristine birds, their black heads and white and brown bodies contrasting against their colourful butt feathers (I’m using the scientific term, of course).
And after seeing the images, you might think that you now know what my barber’s bulbul looks like. And you’d be right, to a point. Let me put it this way - imagine the difference in images when searching for the word “car” versus “broken down jalopy”. I think birds on the internet eat balanced meals, exercise regularly, and meditate. My barber’s bird appears to be a recovering addict who’s barely holding it together. Maybe it’s on the run from the law. Or loan hawks. Perhaps it’s hiding from the gang it used to fly with. There has to be a seedy reason that it doesn’t dash for the door and attempt escape to the great outdoors at every given opportunity. Or any opportunity, really.
After the cut, as I’m preparing to leave, the bulbul will fly back to my shoulder and settle in as if it’s ready to make a change in residence. When the barber reaches out a finger, the bird will hop onto it and then fly back to the safety of a plant.
I have asked myself if I’ve detected any reluctance on the part of the bird to remain behind after I’ve left. And a part of me, a very ego-driven part, believes it does want to leave there and stay with me. I think it would experience all sorts of adventures were it to make my home its home: getting to know a new residence and neighbourhood, learning new languages as migratory birds make temporary residence into the area throughout the year, and the likely-to-be-eventually-terminal interactions with my five cats.
Come to think of it, better that it greet me monthly than the alternative.
The Unlikely Climber
This is a story about a drop of water. Not a big one like what drips from a sink tap but instead a single solitary water drop. His formal name is the same as every other drop’s - Molecule - but he calls himself M’Kewl.
M’Kewl doesn’t think of himself as special in any noticeable way. He looks just like any other water drop with two small Hydrogen atoms stuck onto his big Oxygen atom body in such a way that humans think of Mickey Mouse when they see pictures. And M’Kewl appeared on Earth along with most other drops long before anyone could conceive of words like “exist” or “aware”. But he is different in one important way - he wants to do something no other drop has ever done before (or at least not that he’s heard!). He wants to climb mountains.
Many drops have been to all sorts of places. In fact, the single greatest pleasure of water drops is to tell stories about all the places they’ve been - atop Andean peaks, diving to the deepest depths of the Pacific, and residing within the bodies of billions of living things of every shape, colour, and size - and to share dreams of future adventures. But no one talks about climbing mountains.
All drops know the basics of watery life, things like evaporation and condensation, and, above all, what they call the Great Rest (what humans call Freezing Cold). Most drops see these things as limits to what they can do, but M’Kewl saw them as things to overcome in order to climb mountains.
Sometimes drops fall onto a mountain as mist or rain. Sometimes they’re transported by a living thing and left behind as breath, sweat, or urine. But no drop has actually climbed a mountain on its own. M’Kewl was certain he could succeed where others had barely tried to climb mountains.
As he began formulating his plan, he shared it with anyone who’d listen. He told clams and kelp - they said he was crazy. He told shrimps and snails - they said he was crazy. He told fishes of every species - they said he was crazy. Even when he told porpoises, penguins, and polar bears, they all said he was crazy! “Little Molecule!”, they cried, “It’s silly to think you can climb mountains!”
Undeterred, he located a promising river and entered. The further he traveled, the harder it became to progress, but progress he made. Dams, pipes, splashes, sprays, and the ever present danger of evaporation (and having to start all over again) - he overcame them all. And all the while everyone on the way down cried that he was in the way, that he should turn around and follow along the same way they were. But still he continued to climb the mountain.
He was in mid-climb when he encountered me.
And who am I? No one special in any noticeable way; just someone who likes to sit beside a cool rushing stream and dream dreams. M’Kewl waved to me from a bit of moss next to an eddy where I was soaking my feet and told me all about his journeyings, his dreams, his intended goal. After a time, he left to continue climbing again.
And he may very well be climbing still.
Climb on, you crazy dreamer. Climb on.
