Forty-five-year-old Aleksei Kudashkin settled comfortably into his armchair at home, anticipating a wonderful evening. The match was about to begin. The Cup Winners’ Cup was no laughing matter. The man even firmly closed the door to the living room to ensure he wouldn’t be disturbed. The commercials were just about to end, and then…
Suddenly, a meow was heard from behind the door. It was Kudashkin’s favorite—Vasily the cat—demanding that his master let him in.
“Fine,” the apartment owner thought, “Vasya can come in. He’s a guy too, which means he respects football.”
Aleksei stood up and opened the door, but he didn’t find his cat there.
“Strange, maybe I just imagined it,” the man said aloud and returned to his seat. Not even a couple of minutes had passed before the cat was meowing behind the door again.
“Vasya, for Pete’s sake, it’s time you learned how to open the door yourself,” Kudashkin snapped, jerking the handle and peering out, but once again, he found no cat behind the door.
The match had started, but the football enthusiast was already on edge. He couldn’t have imagined the meowing three times. Kudashkin decided to investigate what was going on and stomped his feet in place several times to make it sound as if he were walking away from the door.
Aleksei listened intently. No sounds could be heard. Leaning forward slightly, he waited to see what would happen next. At the exact moment a creaky “meow” rang out, the man lunged into the hallway. There, he saw Zhorik—his wife’s favorite, an Eclectus parrot—waddling toward the bedroom, swaying from side to side.
“Oh, you painted rooster, I’ll show you!” Kudashkin pulled his shorts up higher and had just stepped into the hallway when he heard ecstatic shouts and the roar of the stadium. The sports commentator, practically in a state of ecstasy, was screaming: “Goal! Goooal! Yes! Yes! Yes! That was beautiful!”
Frustrated beyond belief, Aleksei rushed back to the television, realizing that everything had already happened. He had missed the most important goal of the championship. Of course, he could watch the recording later, but it wouldn’t be the same at all.
The master of the house was fuming. He had told his wife repeatedly that one day he would turn her parrot into soup. They were jokes, of course. But now, the moment had arrived when the husband was ready to carry out his threats… Forty-five is an age of delicate balance. For Alexey Kudashkin, it was the age where a man truly learns to appreciate the sanctity of a quiet evening. On this particular Saturday, the stars had aligned perfectly: his wife, Catherine, was visiting her mother, the apartment was redolent with the comforting scent of a freshly opened bag of salty snacks, and the television was humming with the electric anticipation of a pre-match broadcast. This wasn’t just any game; it was the Cup Winners’ Cup, a tournament that held a near-mystical status in Alexey’s heart.
He settled into his high-backed armchair—a piece of furniture he considered his personal throne—and adjusted his position until his spine reached a state of perfect equilibrium. He had already performed the ritual of the “Closed Door,” ensuring the living room was a sealed vault against the outside world. No domestic requests, no ringing phones, no distractions. The commercials were a frantic blur of colors, the final hurdles before the whistle would blow.
“Just a few more seconds,” Alexey whispered to himself, a small, expectant smile playing on his lips.
Suddenly, a sound pierced the silence. It was a thin, plaintive meow coming from just behind the heavy oak door. Alexey frowned. It was Vasily, the family’s ginger cat and Alexey’s only true ally in a household increasingly dominated by feminine energy. Vasily was a creature of habit, usually found sleeping on the radiator, but he clearly sensed the importance of the evening.
“Alright, Vasya,” Alexey thought, his heart softening. “You’re a man of the world. You understand the gravity of a penalty shootout. You can stay.”
He hauled himself out of the plush depths of the chair, padded across the rug, and swung the door open. The hallway was empty. A pale sliver of moonlight fell across the floorboards, illuminating… nothing. Not a whisker, not a tail. Alexey poked his head out, looking left toward the kitchen and right toward the bedrooms. Silence.
“Strange,” he muttered, scratching his head. “Auditory hallucinations already? I haven’t even opened the beer.”
He retreated and sat back down. The match had kicked off. The green pitch on the screen was a battlefield of light. But less than two minutes later, the sound returned. Meow. Meowwww. It was louder this time, more insistent, bordering on a wail of feline despair.
Alexey’s patience snapped. “Vasya, for the love of everything holy, make up your mind!” He lunged for the door, pulling it open with a dramatic flourish, expecting to catch the cat mid-stride. Again, the hallway was a desert of stillness. Now, Alexey was no longer just a spectator; he was a detective. He knew the laws of physics did not allow a ten-pound ginger cat to vanish into thin air in the span of three seconds. He decided to employ a tactical feint. He closed the door, but instead of returning to his chair, he stood perfectly still, his ear pressed against the wood. He began to march in place, softly at first then louder, mimicking the sound of footsteps retreating toward the television.
He waited. Ten seconds. Twenty. Then, it came. A raspy, metallic, yet hauntingly accurate “Mya-uuu-uuu.”
Alexey whipped the door open. In the dim light of the corridor, he didn’t see a cat. Instead, he caught the sight of a vibrant, emerald-green streak waddling toward the bedroom with the smug gait of a victorious general. It was Joric—Catherine’s beloved Eclectus parrot.
“You… you painted rooster!” Alexey hissed, his voice trembling with a mix of awe and fury.
At that exact moment, a roar erupted from the living room. It wasn’t just a roar; it was the sound of fifty thousand people screaming in unison through his speakers. The commentator’s voice reached a fever pitch, cracking with emotion: “Goal! Goal! Goal! Unbelievable! A strike for the ages! The stadium is in absolute ecstasy!”
Alexey collapsed against the doorframe. He had missed it. The pinnacle of the season, the moment he would have discussed with his colleagues for weeks, had been stolen from him by a bird with the vocal range of a ventriloquist. He rushed back to the TV, but the screen only showed the slow-motion replay of a ball hitting the back of the net—a ghost of a moment already passed.
He turned his gaze toward the bedroom door, where Joric had disappeared. The bird was an Eclectus, often called a “Noble Parrot,” and in that moment, Alexey found the name deeply ironic. There was nothing noble about this feathered anarchist. The presence of Joric in the Kudashkin household was the result of a profound shift in their family dynamic. Two years prior, their only son, Vanya, had graduated with honors and moved to Moscow to study architecture. The silence he left behind was a physical weight, one that Catherine struggled to carry. The “Empty Nest Syndrome” had hit her with the force of a gale-wind. She wandered the rooms, looking at Vanya’s old sketches, her eyes perpetually brimming with unshed tears.
Alexey, a man of action but few words, had tried everything. He took her to the cinema; he bought her a new coat; he even suggested a vacation to the Baltic. Nothing worked. Desperate, he consulted friends and scoured the internet until he found a recurring piece of advice: To cure a deep melancholy, fulfill a childhood dream.
Catherine’s dream was specific: she wanted a talking parrot. Not a common budgie, but a companion. When Alexey saw the price tag for a high-quality Eclectus, his eyes nearly watered, but he remembered the way Catherine used to laugh, and he made the purchase.
Joric was undeniably beautiful. With his forest-green plumage and a beak the color of a ripened orange, he looked like a piece of living tropical art. He was also terrifyingly intelligent. While Catherine showered him with affection, treating him like a surrogate son, Joric viewed Alexey as a rival for resources and attention.
The parrot’s favorite game was psychological warfare. He would wait until Alexey entered the kitchen, then jump onto the floor and purposefully stumble under Alexey’s feet. Before a collision could even occur, Joric would let out a blood-curdling shriek, as if he were being interrogated by the secret police.
“Alexey! What did you do to him?” Catherine would scream from the next room, rushing in to scoop up the “injured” bird.
“I didn’t touch him, Katya! He’s a professional actor! He’s a fraud!” Alexey would protest, but it was no use. Catherine would spend the next hour feeding Joric organic blueberries and whispering sweet nothings into his feathers while Alexey and Vasily the cat sat in the corner, two forgotten relics of a bygone era. The tension reached a breaking point when Catherine announced an urgent three-week business trip to Vladivostok. For Alexey, it was a glimpse of freedom; for Catherine, it was an organizational nightmare. She didn’t spend her final days packing her own clothes; she spent them auditing Alexey’s ability to manage Joric’s complex lifestyle.
“Listen to me, Alexey,” she said, her finger wagging near his nose. “This isn’t just a bird. He is a delicate organism. He requires sprouted grains, precisely two grams of vitamins every Wednesday, and he must have at least six hours of out-of-cage time daily. If you neglect the cage cleaning, he will become depressed. If he becomes depressed, he will pluck his feathers. Do you want a bald parrot, Alexey?”
“I’ll be fine, Katya,” Alexey sighed. “I’ve raised a human son. I think I can handle a bird.”
“A human son can tell you when he’s hungry. Joric will only tell you that you’re an idiot,” she retorted.
The day after she left, the apartment felt different. It was quieter, but it was the quiet of a cold war. Joric sat on his perch, staring at Alexey with unblinking, obsidian eyes. He began to demand attention at 5:00 AM, screaming “Time for work! Lekha, time for work!” at a volume that surely disturbed the neighbors three floors down.
By day three, Alexey was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. He looked at Vasily, who was hiding under the sofa. “We can’t live like this, Vasya. It’s him or us.” That afternoon, while taking out the trash, Alexey ran into Misha Shmakin, a medical student from the apartment next door. Misha was the quintessential student: perpetually exhausted, chronically broke, and always looking for a way to avoid studying for his anatomy exams.
“Hey, Misha,” Alexey said, leaning against the mailboxes. “How would you like to make some easy money? And get some free fruit?”
Misha’s ears practically perked up at the word “money.” “What’s the catch, Uncle Lesha? Do I have to help you move a piano?”
“Better. I have a guest who needs a change of scenery. A very intelligent, very green guest.”
After a brief negotiation—Alexey offered five thousand rubles, Misha counter-offered seven, and they settled on six thousand plus a weekly supply of “luxury” produce—the deal was struck. Alexey spent the next hour surreptitiously moving Joric’s massive cage and accessories into Misha’s studio.
Joric, sensing a change in the wind, remained uncharacteristically silent during the move. As Alexey prepared to leave the student’s apartment, he couldn’t resist one final jab.
“Well, George, I’ve traded you for peace and quiet. You’re going to live the student life now. Hope you like instant noodles and late-night gaming.”
Joric tilted his head, his beak clicking. “I’ll tell Katya,” he croaked. “Shame on the jungle! I’ll tell Katya!”
Alexey laughed all the way back to his apartment, where he and Vasily spent the evening in blissful, uninterrupted silence. For the next two weeks, Joric became the unofficial mascot of the medical faculty. Misha, despite his initial hesitation, found the parrot to be a fascinating roommate. Joric would sit on the back of Misha’s chair while he studied, occasionally mimicking the sound of a page turning or the ping of a laptop notification.
However, the “Noble Parrot” hadn’t lost his penchant for mischief. One evening, Misha invited a girl named Zhenechka over for dinner. She was a beautiful, somewhat vain student who spent most of the evening admiring her own reflection in Misha’s hallway mirror. Joric watched her with intense interest.
Just as Misha was about to make his move and ask for a second date, Joric puffed out his chest and began to sing. But he didn’t sing a lullaby. He sang a popular, mocking Russian song about a girl who is only “beautiful when she wears makeup.”
The results were catastrophic. Zhenechka, convinced that Misha had trained the bird to insult her, threw her coat on and stormed out, leaving Misha with a cold dinner and a very satisfied parrot.
“You’re a menace, Jora,” Misha sighed, but he couldn’t stay mad. He spent the rest of the night teaching Joric the lyrics to “Kino” songs and various pieces of student slang. Joric was a sponge, soaking up every “cool,” “bro,” and “sweetheart” that echoed in the small apartment. The day before Catherine’s return, Alexey retrieved Joric. He was horrified to find that the parrot now smelled faintly of cheap cologne and spoke with the rhythmic cadence of a Moscow DJ.
“Listen to me, you feathered delinquent,” Alexey warned as he scrubbed the cage. “Not a word about Misha. Not a word about the other apartment. If you behave, I’ll buy you a pound of those Brazilian nuts you like.”
Catherine arrived home like a whirlwind, bearing gifts of smoked fish from the Far East and stories of the Pacific coast. That evening, they hosted a small homecoming dinner, including Alexey’s mother-in-law, Tamara Lvovna—a woman whose primary hobby was finding flaws in her son-in-law’s character.
The table was set, the sparkling wine was poured, and for a moment, the Kudashkin home felt like a scene from a glossy magazine. Catherine was beaming, petting Joric’s head.
“Oh, my sweet boy,” she cooed. “Did you miss Mommy? Did Alexey take good care of you?”
Joric looked at Catherine, then at Alexey, then at the suspicious Tamara Lvovna. He took a theatrical sip of water from his bowl, cleared his throat, and in a voice that was unmistakably a mimicry of a lovestruck student, he croaked:
“Zhenechka is so good… Zhenechka is beautiful… Kiss me, baby!”
The silence that followed was so thick it could have been sliced with a bread knife. Catherine’s hand froze mid-air. Tamara Lvovna dropped her fork, her eyes widening with the predatory glee of a hawk spotting a field mouse.
“Who,” Catherine whispered, her voice dangerously low, “is Zhenechka?”
“Katya, I swear—” Alexey began, his face turning the color of a ripe beet.
“Don’t you ‘Katya’ me!” she cried, her voice rising. “I go away for three weeks to provide for this family, and you bring a ‘Zhenechka’ into my home? Into my living room? In front of the bird?!”
“He’s clearly talking about the neighbor’s daughter, the one with the curls,” Tamara Lvovna added, stoking the fire. “I saw her in the hallway last month. So, Alexey, is that your taste now? Students?”
Catherine stood up, tears streaming down her face, and headed for the closet. She pulled out the large suitcase she had just unpacked. “If you love Zhenechka so much, you can go live with her!” Alexey realized he was caught in a trap of his own making. If he stayed silent, he was an adulterer. If he spoke, he was a man who had “betrayed” his wife’s trust by outsourcing the care of her “child.”
“Wait!” he shouted, standing up so quickly he nearly knocked over the wine. “There is no Zhenechka! Well, there is, but she’s not mine! She’s Misha’s!”
He spent the next twenty minutes recounting the entire saga—the missed goal, the psychological torture, the six-thousand-ruble bribe, and the two-week exile of the parrot. Catherine listened, her expression shifting from fury to bewilderment to a cold, icy skepticism.
To settle the matter, they were forced to march next door and wake up a very confused Misha Shmakin. The student, standing in his doorway in mismatched pajamas, confirmed every detail, even performing a brief rendition of the “makeup” song to prove Joric’s musical education.
Back in their own apartment, the storm finally broke. Catherine didn’t kick Alexey out, but she didn’t apologize either. She spent the rest of the night cleaning Joric’s cage with an intensity usually reserved for surgical theaters, muttering about “irresponsible husbands.”
Alexey sat in his armchair, exhausted. Vasily the cat crawled onto his lap, purring sympathetically. Across the room, Joric climbed to the highest point of his cage, looked directly at Alexey, and let out a long, slow whistle.
“Cool story, bro,” the parrot muttered.
Alexey sighed, closed his eyes, and realized that in the kingdom of the Kudashkin household, he might be the king, but the parrot was undoubtedly the power behind the throne.