It began with this strange one-legged German psychiatrist with a

The path we follow is not one that we may choose to take. In fact we

are often given no choice at all but are made to follow it perforce.

We amble along, and then by way of circumstances are influenced by

events that shape what we become and what we do.

I am taking this opportunity to write on a matter that has been

weighing heavily on my mind for quite a while. I trust that reading

this will not cause much distress. What I did was unforgivable, but

shrive I must.

The problem goes back not too far. In fact it began just a few months

ago. It began with this strange one-legged German psychiatrist with a

wooden leg named von Sttutgaerstein (that was his name, not the name

of the wooden leg). Anyway, he wanders into my lab and life with a

rubber parrot on his shoulder. The parrot was of the inflatable kind,

and he had a little tube attached to its rear which passed through the

collar of what looked like a napoleonic overcoat and to a bellows that

he kept between his arm and chest. It seems that the parrot, while

quite sturdy if a trifle unrealistic in view of its clearly rubber

origin, had a small leak somewhere between its occipital area and its

garish plummage that necessitated ocassional, if frantic, pumping of

the arm to keep it inflated.

At this point I ask you to be patient. This may seem to be nothing

serious. After all, one-legged German psychiatrists with a wooden leg

are not the things to cause dismay even if they walk around with

hideously colored inflatable rubber parrots on their shoulders. Yet

this person has had the most profound influence on my life.

So he wanders into my lab in this strange overcoat, his wooden leg

going thump! screech! (this last when he dragged it forward) and asks

in a hoarse voice that sounded vaguely Dutch in accent,

"I ask for Meestair Paaneeni. Is this the lab of Menheer Paaneeni? I

asks, yes."

At that time, I remember clearly, I was occupied with a complicated

problem, and I had absolutely no time to spare even for odd looking

blokes speaking with an odd accent.

"He died yesterday" I said. "Died of hydroencephalus"

So he looked concerned. Sucked in his breath hard and slowly. "Ach!

So, Yess I am sorry to hear. Butt vere is he" and kept pumping his arm

furiously as the parrot started to deflate slowly and began to sag

forward.

I was irritated, and am afraid, a bit curt. "I don't know. Look why

don't you talk to the animal disposal people in the basement. They

came for him last afternoon and took him away in a body bag. I believe

he is due to be disposed off today. By the way, it's against building

rules to be walking around with dead animals on your shoulder."

He looked a bit startled. "Disposed off? but but.. how" Then even more

distracted he looked at the parrot on his shoulder, which was

beginning to look emaciated as the air ran out. He started to pump his

arm again. "Mein gott," he muttered to himself. "Dis animal is not

dead, it is not efen alife."

I was now really impatient with this guy who couldn't even keep his

parrot dead or alive. "Look mister, Panini is dead. He is history. We

don't keep him here anymore, it would be a health hazard to do so. Are

you his relative? If so, you can collect his personal items from the

office downstairs. And it's quite useless to tell me that the parrot

is neither dead nor alive. Either ways its against building

regulations to be walking around with an animal on your shoulder that

is neither dead nor alive."

He looked a little worried now. Torn between finding out what happened

to Panini, and his parrot that clearly was not within regulations.

I had a sudden suspicion. "Look here, do you have a license for that

animal? You could get into a frightful row if that thing isn't

licensed"

He was really alarmed now. "Liesawn?" he queried in that absolutely

barbaric accent. "Vat do you mean by liesawn?"

"Just that" I said grimly. "If you haven't gotten one, I will have to

call the animal disposal people to come and get rid of it"

He started to beg and plead. But I just called up the disposal people

and they simply dragged the wretched creature off his shoulder, and

stuffed it into a plastic bag, sealed it, and gave him a receipt.

"Right" said Jim, the cheerful animal undertaker. "One parrot of

uncertain status, unlicensed and clearly neither dead nor alive." He

looked at the odd figure in the overcoat, and said comfortingly,

"Don't worry, we will put it down as humanely as possible. It won't

feel a thing"

That poor German was so upset. He walked out of the lab in tears. I

forgot all about him until I was reading the obituaries section of the

News Gazette two weeks ago. It said that they had found this one

legged German with a wooden leg, dead in a bus shelter waiting for the

22 Illini Shuttle. The last person seen talking to him reported that

the German was in a delirious state and kept talking of some weird

neurophysiology grad student who had taken away his rubber parrot and

had it interred because it was against regulations.

So you see, I feel responsible. The last two weeks have been hell. I

can't put him and that parrot out of my mind.

You will doubtless be shocked to hear of such callous disregard on my

part for this old man. But I have shrived, and hopefully I can rest in ....

(There are vague similarities between the kind of parrot that the German had and a parrot in a Pink Panther movie. The coincidence is remarkable. But since the movie appeared before the German, I should reassure readers that the similarities are quite superficial.)