The Extroverted Agoraphobic continued
Albert began with the obvious books, T.V. specials, and internet scrollings to extract the miracle physiology of the canary bird, but found nothing of use. Then after an enormous amount of time with his head buried in Aves academia of all kinds, he completely failed to discover the real inner workings of the canary to duplicate as his own. All of the immunochemistry investigations and research eluded him. Catalystic Axonal Connections and Metabolic Histology escaped him. Catechlaminergics were never found. No evidence of presynaptic proteins and lipid-binding estrogen receptors were revealed or publicized or disclosed or unearthed or answered properly.
The only solution that remained was to build a full-body canary suit of his own.
In the isolated solace of his home, Albert began constructing his new suit, systematically, one step at a time… Passing massive boulders of information, up a mountain of knowledge, and a mole hill of paranoia.
… Never get arsine, boron trichloride, carbon monoxide, chlorine pentafluoride, chlorine triflouride, cyanogen, cyanogen chloride, diborane, dinitrogen tetroxide, fluorine, germane, hydrogen selenide, methane, nitric oxide, nitrogen dioxide, nitrogen trioxide, nitrosyl chloride, oxygen difluoride, phosgene, phosphine, phosphorus, pentafluoride, selenium hexafluoride, stibine, sulfur tetrafluoride, tellurium hexafluoride, tetraethyldithiopyrophosphate, or tetraethyl pyrophosphate past me. Never…
Initially, Albert had to find his body surface area, to know how many canaries it would actually take to cover him. After calculating (and cross-referencing) the various formulas of Dubois & Dubois, Monsteller, Haycock, Gebham & George, and Boyd, he found his BSA to be approximately 69.2 feet… Respectively.
In accordance, he then ordered from the internet 97 yellow based canaries with green and cinnamon highlights, and also 54 white based birds with blue and fawn illuminations for a total of 151, that all in all, at 12 to 30 grams a piece, tallied a final weight of 6.899 pounds - and all 151 averaging 4 to 7 inches in height and length, would conveniently cover his BSA of 69.2 feet, snuggly.
Before they arrived, Albert spent his time wisely studying the art of contortionism and dynamic body-dislocation techniques to prepare and be able to assemble the canaries over the course of his entire body - the back being the most difficult of places to reach.
Just as he finished, the birds arrived, and Albert commenced configuring and painstakingly measuring each bird of its true form and shape. Equally, during the procedure, an odd repetition of the snake-lady phone call invaded his head, that couldn't be released from his thoughts. He thought he'd go mad, and in consequence, the canary birds picked up on the transmission. Agitated, they all adopted his attention.
He didn't know it at the time, but the bird's pineal glands, and his own, both had conjoined, fused, and merged into a union of intentional indifference, and an obvious Hypothalamus Associative-Contact. Eventually, the echo-hissing contract became a welded disturbance, and a mutual belief of dogmatic madness.
Notably, the birds became increasingly agitated and unsettling. The interrupting and erupting result was a flurry of high-shrilled tweeting, and shedding, and defecation that grew incessant and ear-numbing.
By way of accident, Albert discovered the only way he could calm the birds, was to play the 1961 West Side Story movie for them on a DVD loop from his T.V.
In effect, he could then resume his canary suit assemblage. His movie on constant loop, Albert got going by stitching every single bird, one by one, to every single inch of his body - tight, crowded, and compacted. Productively, he form-fitted each of the bird's primary, secondary, lesser-median, and upper tail coverts - rumps, thighs, and vents - feet, toes, and claws to every section of himself.
He went through a dozen needles and 34.6 feet of thread before painful exhaustion made him stop at the small of his back. He paused, bled, and grimaced. He continued.
By nightfall of the same day, he had all 151 birds surgically attached to his entire surface area - his head, face, neck, torso, back, arms, fingers, groin, thighs, knees, calves, ankles, feet, and toes covered with yellow and white canaries - all with a hint of green, cinnamon, blue and fawn hue.
He dared anyone to poison him then.
Before sleeping that night, his West Side Story DVD broke from overuse, and the birds returned to their shrill-tweeting fit - the feather-shedding fit - the wet and dry pooping fit.
In return, Albert (having heard the West Side Story musical numerous times then), immediately began singing all the vocal arrangements for the birds. The canaries quickly calmed, and their host carried on.
He fixed the disc and machine as best as he could, and soon fell asleep - bruised, bloodied, bumpy, swollen, and sore.
Albert awoke the next morning completely paranoid and devoid of freshness. He swore he heard snakes outside trying to rush in and steal his poison-gas-detector-outfit. The canaries lit up with him as he paced the house, flapping his arms to shoo away the threats.
The canaries continued to shed, and fidget, and tweet, and crap; and then he remembered the West Side Story DVD. It had broken again overnight and appeared completely unusable. The solution came to Albert quickly, and he started performing for the birds, imitating every part from the movie. He reproduced and uniquely forged every singing arrangement, dance step, and choreography number; and inside each physically-traced-duplication was a flourish of pin-point-accurate reflexive echoes.
Starting with Tony, Riff, and Maria, in proportion, he worked his way through every Shark, Jet, Shark girl, and Jet girl, soundly ending with Pauline. Succeeding with discipline, he then learned and mastered every musical idea, orchestration, and symphonic dance from the film. Still performing with a flurry, Albert continued on, learning every musical instrument and its role in the movie. Ending with certainty, by way of the 'augmented fourths' and 'diminished fifths', he successfully played out every nuance of the film, second-for-second, to quiet the birds down.
And it worked.
The canaries calmed.
However, it was somewhat too late. By that time during Albert's performances, the canaries had already been past due of their stressed-agitation limits and released a tremendous amount of Loricated-Corticatropin, Bulwark-Epinephrine, and Trammelglucosaline; including a chemical undertow and overthrow of Ebullient-Cortisol from their pituitary and adrenal glands, leaving their host, elementally, and in fatal finality, with Gamasoidosis.
Albert knew nothing of what was happening to his body on the molecular level - he never studied or even heard of Gamasoidosis, but he did feel like he was being poisoned - and then felt confused - and then felt the wasted effort.
Albert ripped off his canary suit, one diseased bird at a time; and then by the handfuls. Blood, puss, stitching, feathers, and skin flew away as he relinquished his poison-detecting armor. Underneath it all, all over his body were Primary Lesions of bullas, burrows, erosions, macules, nodules, papules, patches, plaques, pustules, telangiectasia, ulcers, vesicles, and wheals; and Secondary lesions of atrophy, crust, excoriations, indurations, lichenifications, and scales; including Microscopic Nomenclatures of acantholysis, acanthosis, decorticated erosion, dyskeratosis, exocytosis, hydropic swelling, hypergranulosis, hyperkeratosis, integumented ulceration, lentiginous, papillomatosis, parakeratosis, spongiosis, and vacuolization.
Albert was horrified at the thought of his online computer purchase. How could he have been so stupid as to order, unaccountable, by way of humans - they had to ship them manually. They had to handle the birds at some point of the transfer… What an unassuming dog-leg stealthy way to poison someone…
He needed new birds, and a new suit, and a new way to acquire it all.
Albert then actively and attentively collected as much pheromonal-liquid as he could from the leftover canary birds. Afterwards, he used the cocktail to attract and collect new birds from his window, and then successfully rebuilt a new canary suit. The rough coverings of his skin proved to be challenging as he stitched the new birds to his body, but he completed it in record time.
He ached with relief. He moaned with satisfaction. He bled just a bit, causing a new 'red factor' among his canary outfit.
Outside, around the entirety of the house, Albert heard hissing purrs commingling with the air and thermal updrafts. It vented snarls, growls, and then hissing again. He grew agitated and paranoid - the canaries the same. After a short time, he couldn't distinguish between cat hissing and snake hissing - snakes hissing or cats hissing…
Albert wondered shortly and then concluded that the people 'out there' must have sent the cats instead… They must have given up on poison, and sent cats to obliterate him - him and his canary suit of armor.
He needed to hide - to think…
…To build another suit…
But what? What would deter and fend off cats? A dog suit? A water suit?
Albert couldn't think of what to do next. Sequentially, he lay on his living room floor and mused over empty possibilities… Pushing back and forth his ball-of-string boulder… His leftover bird-stitching thread... Passing it side to side between his hands, rolling… Thinking… Perhaps, something of bioluminescence… The ball of thread rolling side to side, back and forth, between his hands… Staring… Thinking…