The Boney Birds of Revelry

Some people are very good at life. I do not mean that they have houses that match their briefcases and never wash their whites with a stray red sock, or that they have a five-year-plan in a folder which is in a bookcase, not accidentally stored in the woodpile. I mean that they are at all the gigs and at the front of all the conga lines, have had boombox parties in underwater caves with swarms of raving electric eels, and have watched the sun rise from the tops of mountains, the bottom of lakes, and even from inside the earth’s core. I speak really of the Boney Birds of Revelry, whose  sequinned nests are always impressively strewn with glitter and are often mistaken for giant disco balls. It is considered impossible to keep up with the Boney Birds’ dance moves, which go on for days, take up a lot of space, and occasionally the teeth of unwitting passersby. The birds absorb the energy of joyous revelry like a black leotard left in the sunlight, and after a good party they often glow in the dark, which in turn leads to more revelry, and fabulous glowing synchronised dancing. They are said to possess ancient powers that cause jovial things to happen at parties - there have been reports of table dancing sloths emerging out of dips, party bags that suddenly contain real parties, and on one memorable night all the guests sprouted resplendent wings, soared upwards into the sky, and danced so hard on on the clouds that one was accidentally burst, and a desert transformed into the sparkliest lake of all time (now home to a large gathering of magpies). The bones the birds wear around their necks and in their party hats symbolise the indestructible spirit but also the transitory, and the duty to celebrate the present, so although they are wild, they are also wise.