It’s a nice Sunday morning – everything is fine, the sun is bright and the wind is cool. It’s supposed to be my resting period, since I have to work my ass off everyday. Well, that’s not how this Sunday ended up being. My boss, Marco, has gone off to Las Vegas with his wife for their anniversary, and because he couldn’t take his pet parrot on his flight, I’m stuck with the stupid bird.

Yesterday it seemed quiet. VERY quiet – so quiet that I feared I might have killed it by accident. Today, it’s different. Whenever I say anything the bird would say “yes”. Yes, yes, yes, that’s all I’m hearing today. I tried calling the vet, but whenever I tried talking to the vet, the parrot would shout out “YES! YES!” so loud, that the vet thought I was prank calling him.

I went on the internet and tried searching mocking birds’ habits, but they only told you about when the birds would stay still, and nothing about when the god damn bird blabbers out stuff constantly.

After I found out that there’s no possible way to shut this parrot up except killing it – I tried taping up his mouth (or beak, or whatever they call it), bur it’d try to poke my freaking eye out, so I stopped – I tried talking to it.

“Don’t you ever shut up? Like how you were yesterday?” I asked in a generous, calm voice. But all he said was “yes”. Suddenly, I came up with a plan to kill my time. You know how in movies or books, people talk to their dogs about stuff, even though the dog doesn’t even know what the heck you’re talking about. Well, yeah I did that.

So the conversation began, and I told the parrot what I was going through. How Marco – my boss, is a horrible person and how I get paid really badly even if I work as hard as I could, and when I noticed, I was cursing to Marco for being my damn boss.

Then the phone rang, and I picked up. “Hello?” I said really loudly, since the bird kept on saying  yes.

“Hey, this is Marco calling, and I’m coming back in about an hour, so get my pet ready so that I could take him when I get there” He said, with the sound of his wife’s laughter heard over his voice.

“Okay Sir I’ll….” And so Marco hung up. What an asshole, I said to myself. “Yes!” said the bird.

So, after the phone call, I got the parrot back into its cage – it kept on hitting me when I grabbed it, so yeah it was PAINFUL. And I cleaned up my place. For a while I decided to watch TV until Marco came home.

Ding-dong. Marco was here, so I got the bird and went to the door.

“Hey, what’s up..uh….John.” He hardly remembers my name.

“Hello Marco, here’s your pet.” I said, with my eyes on his beautiful wife.

“Thanks man, see ya tomorrow.” and then Marco left.

After the parrot was gone and I was alone again, I decided to have my friends over and drink some beer. So, the party began, with me and my five best friends drinking and playing at my house. I don’t know when the party ended; I guess I was too drunk.

The next day, I had the biggest headache ever. I didn’t feel very well, but I had to drag myself to work, since Marco was REALLY strict, and he didn’t accept any days off from work, EVER.

When I arrived at work, which was about 15 minutes later than usual, I noticed that everybody was either laughing at me or looking at me with one of those you’re-in-trouble faces. I didn’t bother asking them though, since I was having a headache. Also, every time I spotted someone looking at me and tried to talk to them, they walked away, fake-coughing. I knew something was going on here, and I thought it’d either be a really good thing or a really bad thing.

A few hours later, Marco’s secretary – who happened to be his wife, came to me and said that Marco wanted to see me in his office.

“Why would he want to see me?” I asked, kind of nervously.

“I don’t know? (laugh) Go see yourself honey.” She said, laughing.

Why is she laughing? Could it be..? Could it be that I’m getting promoted – finally – for keeping his precious pet for the weekend? Is that why everybody’s laughing towards me – not at me?

I went into Marco’s room proudly, and smiling like an angel. By the way, did I mention how my headache was gone? But, there was something that I saw that I thought was really odd. The parrot. Yes, Marco’s pet parrot.

“Hey what’s up sir? Why is...um...your...pet here?” I asked carefully. Surprisingly, the parrot didn’t say anything.

“Hello, Johnny. You’re probably wondering why I called you to my office, right? Well, my dear friend Vito here, wants to tell you something.” He said, calmly.

So I decided to stay there and listen to the bird – whose name was actually Vito.

“Bark!...Hello? The vet please? Yes…yes…no! No I’m not joking! No! Damn!”

!!!!!!! What the hell? That’s…that’s what I was saying yesterday! Word by word!

“Bark!...Don’t you ever shut up?... Byork!...ring-ring! ring-ring!....Damn! It’s Marco. Hello?....Yes sir I’ll…..hello? Marco, you there? Damn, what an asshole!”

At this point, my face was covered with guilt, and it probably looked like Marlon Brando’s face in the godfather when Sonny got killed. Marco, on the other hand, had one of those faces where he was smiling, but you know that he was really, REALLY angry. After about five minutes, when Vito was done blabbering about my conversation with him and all my bad-talk about Marco, I was almost crying for help, knowing that I was in deep, deep trouble.

“John, son, I see how you feel about me. You know why this parrot is repeating everything you’ve said yesterday? It’s because this boy right here, Vito, is a Sicilian Mocking bird, a rare bird that can only be found in Corleone, Sicily. They’re actually known for their ability to memorize anything a person had said in the past 24 hours. I’ve had many of my employees take care of this bird, just for fun, but you’re the only one so far that dared to talk about me.”

“Is…that a good thing?”

“Well, I am glad that you care much about work so that you’d talk about it to a bird, but from you’re information, I see that you probably need a new boss, since you seem to hate me, a lot.”

Oh no, no no no no no no no no no no.

“Sir, Marco, hey, don’t tell me that you’re gonna….” I was begging him not to say the two words.

“Sorry John, but you really should get a whole new job and boss. Pack you’re stuff and get your butt out of here! YOU, ARE FIRED!” He shouted.

So, I was fired that day, October 21^st, 2006, and I ended up having no money whatsoever. I became poor, and I even had to sell my prized possession – a 60” HDTV I bought after months of saving – to stop the gas company from cutting my gas supply. I lived about two months of winter without heaters on because I had to save my money, and I had to survive three days with a bag of chips. The thing I drank most was beer, because I was depressed. I called my friends at work to try to make them convince Marco to take me back, but they said they couldn’t – I don’t even know if they tried. My five best friends – the ones I had that party with – avoided all my phone calls saying that they were busy, and I couldn’t dare to tell my family about it, because they’d flip if I told them that I got fired because I talked to my boss’s pet.

My dreadful life continued even when I tried to get jobs. I tried to work at a gas station, a club, a restaurant, any damn place, but they all rejected me, each with different reasons; “You look weak, you won’t be able to handle this job,” (I really became weak because I had lost so many pounds from my money-free life), “You don’t look like a good waiter,” “You look weird, you’ll scare my customers,” “We’re full” and etc.

One day when I was rejected yet again from another deli, I was waiting for my bus, sitting on a bench. Then, suddenly a newspaper flew onto my face, and I found an opportunity. Yes, it was an ad that said the Story magazine - the best magazine ever, of course, was looking for the next short-story writer that would continue the legacy of George Saunders. I knew this was the perfect chance for me to gain control of my life, and get a new job. I tried to think of a good short story, but I couldn’t come up with any. Suddenly, I remembered a brilliant story to write about - the dreadful story that led me to this point, my Boss’s Pet.

So that is why right now, I’m stuck here in my room writing this story, because hopefully this story would get me a job in the greatest publishing company in the universe, the Story magazine.

That’s the end of my story. Please, pick me for the new short-story writer for Story magazine! I am penniless!