Christmas Carols

For the past five hours  a bird has been sitting in a tree outside our window, singing. Since he began he has not stopped, or barely even paused for breath. He is singing his little heart out - he chirps, he chirrups, he warbles, he hopsup and down his branch, working up the most fantastic runs, tweeting and whistling and chortling, harder and louder and louder and faster until he chokes on his own whistle, and with only the slightest of pauses to clear his windpipe, he starts again -
            It is three o'clock in the morning, We can't sleep. The sound of this one small bird echoes off of the building to our left, and echoes off of the building to our right, and bounces up and down the parking alley between the two buildings across the street, and on its way back to us, meets the bird's next terpsichorean assault, and it grows and it grows and it grows-

We are afflicted with a lover. You know the guy, the one crouched below the window of his beloved and strumming furiously on his guitar - the guitar strings are smoking, his fingers have turned to rubber and his shoulders are on fire and the stem of the rose between his teeth has been crushed to a bloody pulp, but he will show her -
            He'll show everyone - 
            Beneath his love the world will give way -
            Ooooh, you just watch and see how deep is his love.
            Right above him, his senorita's daddy is out on the balcony, ready to dump a bucket of ice water over the edge.
            Or if we're back to talking birdies, he's got a cat.
            It might have been amusing, but an hour ago the lover from hell was joined by a second bird. They are not friends. Feather to feather, they are trilling their little beaks off. There's no quarter being given - this is war. If one pauses for breath the other finds it in his tiny diaphragm to double his volume and show of just what sort of deathless devotion he is made -
            The father is still upstairs on the balcony, but this time, the he's got the full complement of family retainers lined up on either side. Sleepless and grim, they've all got buckets, ready to go.  He's traded in his bucket for a shotgun. And the señorita is inside on a sofa, with an ice-pack on her head.
 
Merry chirping Christmas.