“The Birdhouse”, on the edge of a cliff overlooking the town, is constructed of several rectangular blocks of white and glass stacked like children’s playthings.
It’s a place for socialites and their hangers-on - people who want to be something in this godforsaken place. Mrs. O’Leary walks into The Birdhouse, her hair permed and purple, her tired flapper gown her date. She wants to be accepted into the “upper class” of the town. Her family came here only 60 years ago!
Mrs. Von Mott, however, is the leader of the fur coat brigade. Her family has been her for over 200 years. She’s old money. The Birdhouse is her house.

The Birdhouse is a curiosity, something of a tourist attraction, for those passing through the town. It sits like a great white wonder preaching to the town in a geometrical fashion- out of reach for most townfolk. “PRIVATE PROPERTY”, the sign declares. There’s no need for anyhing more, everybody knows it anyway. Mrs. Von Mott is not nouveau riche. She is tasteful.

Several nights later at the bottom of the dusty dirt road we see the chewed “PRIVATE PROPERTY” sign. A car is beckoned to by an elderly woman with a flashlight, and we move through a hallway of white and glass and rails where the paint was chipping off.
“Oh, hello Tom. I’m Mrs. Von Mott,” Mrs. Von Mott says to a dapper looking man. She’s dressed in a very Italian way, looking younger than her name suggests but older than my mother.
Usual small talk muttered. We begin to hear squarks and chirps- a symphony of scratched blackbirds, blackboards. Mrs. Von Mott keeps a couple of birds.

SQUARKKK. The bird noises get louder as we leave Mrs. Von Mott and move into the bigger room. Again it’s white and glass. There are bird droppings on the floor- a few of them- mostly it’s the smell. A putrid and bitter rotting smell. The only lighting in this room is a few portable lights, a flashlight or two hanging down from the ceiling. The great and good and fabulously wealthy are mingling here: Plum has a diamond on her finger that looks like it’s about to tip her over. Stein is talking to Harold Truman- “How would you fancy a martini later?”
“Oh, Gertrude, that’d be divine” he says, tiny pig-eyes behind his hopelessly outmoded surgeon’s steel glasses.
There are no amenties. No toilets, no kitchen. There’s no tables or chairs. Just what appears to be a gaggle of people with drinks that’ve materialized out of nowhere.

There’s a couple of rooms off the main room: We move into the left one first, shuffling through people making vague small talk- “good, yeah, good”. The left room has no lighting and contains several parrots. They’re not the type that speak. SQUARKKK.

The right room- more shuffling, more small talk- contains supermarket petshop budgies. The floor’s filthy. Most of the people are leaving.
Birds are moving out from the rooms, and there is bread placed on the floors in crumbs. The lighting’s mostly gone, save for a lone flashlight- “ENERGIZER” written on it. SQUARKKK.

Mrs. Von Mott is nowhere to be seen. Behind the departing guests there’s a cachaphony of birds sounding like bitches in heat sped up in a recording studio. The Birdhouse is cold and dark and it is- SQUARKKK.