The Great Black Bird with a Pearl White Beak

"Birds fly in my windows, and tell me things. The little darlings." he said to me.

"So that is how you know what is going on?"

"Yes, I trained birds to go about and then come back and give me the news. I'm very proud of them." he said.

"How do you teach birds to go about and then come back and tell you things?"

"Oh, that is easy -- with rhinestones, bits of strings,  and snacks. Works every time."

"Anything unusual happen?"

"Yes, I have noticed that occasionally there extra birds that I did not train, that come by. A bit unusual."

"Occasionally?"

"Now and again. Hard to tell."

"Oh, and what are these birds like?"

"I can't generalize -- you see -- they tend to be very different, each one. The unique birds."

"Are they bigger than the birds you use?

"Well, some of them are bigger, some are faster, brighter, darker -- some are quite dangerous. You never know."

"And what do the special birds tell you?"

"Oh dear, I call then "non-repeaters". Because they never come back."

"And what do these "non-repeaters" tell you?"

"All kinds of things -- especially breaking news, sometime on things that are yet to have happened, or are happening far away. It can be upsetting."

"Oh, like how?"

"This very pretty small one, littler than a hummingbird came by just before you came here to interview me. And it told me."

"Told you?"

"That you are dead, you died yesterday. Freak accident."

And I tried to open the door to leave, and I saw he was right. And then the room seemed to be full of birds, and he was a great back bird with a pearl white beak.