Christmas gift

Christmas gift

From Jayakarta

They were happy with their Christmas presents: the toddler
with a few lumps of jelly, the housemaid with a new dress, the
cat with a large fish.

Rather engrossed in daydreaming of recent events, Pak Arif was
passing Jl. Medan Merdeka Barat when he saw a bird entangled in a
string which was stretched between two trees. Who could rescue
the bird? The fire brigade with a ladder? Unlikely that firemen
would be willing to come. Or contact the society of animal
lovers, if there was such an association here? Or shoot the
string with an air rifle? Pak Arif went home and asked his son to
come along with a grounded-glass coated string as used in flying
kites.

Amid the vehicles roaring past him on the boulevard, his son
braced himself to make an overhead throw, somewhat like a cowhand
casting a lasso to catch a horse or cow. The coated string landed
on the stretched one above, snapping it in two, thus freeing the
ensnared bird.

Pak Arif felt elated at having given the bird its freedom, a
Christmas gift despite the absence of lighted candles, Christmas
trees and carols.

CHEW G.H.

Jakarta