IT’S NOT THE FAULT OF THE BIRDS

BY U.V. RAY

February 8, 2026

FADE IN

INT. FRANK K. WINKLE’S HOUSE. EVENING.

A dilapidated room. Bare floor-boards under foot and flimsy drapes covering a single window looking out onto the street. No real furniture, just an unmade bed against one of the four walls w/radio blaring on a stack of upturned beer crates that serve as a nightstand and a table and chairs in the middle. A fourteen inch portable TV sits on the countertop in the corner of the small kitchenette. The wall above the bed is covered in tacked up paraphernalia torn from newspapers and magazines. [Various panning and static shots of random newspaper articles, faded pictures of naked women, sensationalist political headlines and murder stories].

Frank K. Winkle and Spinks have eaten hotdogs and are sitting at the table w/cans of beer. Several crushed empties litter the tabletop. Winkle’s got a permanent yellow patch of skin circling the corner of his mouth from where he always leaves a Marlboro hanging, smouldering right down to the filter. Spinks’s got this Brian Eno hair, almost bald on top but he still tries to whip it up into a quiff and the hair at the sides hangs down over his ears. [Soundtrack playing on the radio is Ronny Kae’s Swinging Drums].

FRANK K. WINKLE (his eyes smarting from the cigarette smoke) So, Spinksy, tell me about this girl, what was she like? And don’t fucking tell me no lies neither.

SPINKS (tipping back his can of beer and killing it) Well, the girl didn’t have the long blonde hair and pearly white smiling teeth I’ve always dreamed about, I’ll tell you that much.

FRANK K. WINKLE Knowing you I’m surprised she hadn’t still got her milk teeth.

SPINKS You hadn’t ought a talk like that or I might havta smash your face in.

Spinks pushes himself away from the table, stands up and puts on his M65 field jacket. Then he rakes his arm across the table and knocks all the empty beer cans to the floor. He’s on his feet pacing around, he stops and scrutinizes all the pinned up newspaper articles on the wall. Then he turns round.

SPINKS (examining something on the back of his hand) She was fourteen going on nineteen, Winkle, and she let me do it to her. You wunta said no to it neither.

FRANK K. WINKLE (crushing an empty can in his hand and cracking open another) Are you out a your fucking mind? You did five years in the slammer for it, man.

SPINKS Yeah, that’s right. I paid my dues. So I’d rather put it all behind me and I’d appreciate it if you didn’t stick your fucking oar in. Any case, least she never went and gid me the crotch crickets like that dirty old dog you went with.

FRANK K. WINKLE (taking the Marlboro stub out his mouth and lighting another with it) Okay, I’ll let you have that one. But at least I’m not a blip on their sex offender radar rest a my days on this earth.

and then, trying to change the subject...

In any case, I thought them Rizzo’s hotdogs turned out to be alright after all.

SPINKS They was alright but you didn’t get enough unyuns on em. I told you, you gotta get a lot of unyuns on em to kill the taste a that phoney sausage meat shit they use.

FRANK K. WINKLE Lissen, am you gunna come and sit down and crack open another beer, or what you gunna do?

SPINKS

I think I’m going to jet outta here. The company here this evening leaves a lot to be desired.

Spinks walks out and yanks the door closed behind him, hard.
[The camera pans over to the window and we see Spinks exit the building. He stops and pulls a pack of Wrigley’s out his pocket, unwraps a stick, puts it in his mouth and trudges away, head down, his hands in the pockets of his jacket].

Frank K. Winkle sits at the table w/his can of beer. Earlier that day the weather started to warm up and the snow started to melt into dirty brown sludge. Periodically he heard it sliding off his sloping roof and splattering down into his back yard as cars splashed along the street out front. He’d gone out into the yard and tossed some scraps of food on the birdtable for the birds. He liked to feed the birds.

When he first moved to this joint three years ago he was quids in. Rent was cheap as chips, for one thing. For a while he couldn’t say that he’d noticed his neighbour much. But he saw her here and there. She was a little older but she looked quite a tidy little dark-haired piece w/ruby red lips. When they bumped into each other she’d kind a give him that look and she would smile and say his name; Frank. Hello, Frank, she would say. After that he started paying her more attention, it was like she’d Jedi mind-tricked him or sumthing and he was pulled into her sphere. Anyway, one thing leads to another. Her name was Stacy. And Stacy was the dirty dog Spinks was referring to that gid him the crotch crickets. She moved out about six months ago and he hadn’t sin hair nor hide of her since. Sum geezer moved in now who only got one arm and spits when he talks.

Winkle goes over and sits on the bed w/his back against the wall. Well, nuthing that happens is the fault of the birds, is it? You know, people don’t mean to be bad. It’s all the converging tides that drag us all down. We’re all living in a new age of anxiety and nobody really knows what they’re anxious about, it’s just an all pervading sense of disquietude. Nobody knows what life is all about and part of us is fading away, our spirits degrading day by day. It’s too hard to accept that in the end it’s all for nuthing.

He lights another cigarette and stares at the ceiling.

ALTERNATIVE ENDING

Spinks walks out and yanks the door closed behind him, hard.
[The camera pans over to the window and we see Spinks’ skeletal frame exit the building. He stops and pulls a pack of Wrigley’s out his pocket, unwraps a stick, puts it in his mouth and trudges away, head down, his hands in the pockets of his jacket].

EXT. STREET. EVENING.

Spinks walks along the street [Tracking shot - horizontal]. He’s traipsing through the sludge. He has the cord from the Walkman in his pocket plugged into his ears. The gilded beauty of golden clouds tinged w/red [lens flare] stretches above the towerblocks of Chelmsley Wood housing estate. At an intersection he steps off the curb without looking and is knocked down by a car. He lies in the road on his side. A pool of blood forms near his head, his legs are kicking arbitrarily like he’s working a treadmill. A small crowd gathers around him.

FADE TO BLACK

ANON (V.O) (shouting) Can somebody call an ambulance.

CAST

FRANK K. WINKLE – JOHN MARCEL O’LEARY SPINKS – DAVID BERLITZ

u.v.ray is a writer from Birmingham, England. His work has appeared around the world over the last 35 years. In February 2025 he went missing (presumed dead) during a sail-boat trip in the Bermuda Triangle, shortly after completing his 7th novel DRUGGERNAUT, which is out now from 5767 Production’s SPINNERS PRESS.