25: Serenade, by Andy Leggett
He lulled her asleep and awake with every rising and setting movement of the sun. From his branch below her window he would serenade her as she leaned against the sill, sipping either her morning or evening coffee. Looking down, she would see his liquid eyes through the fumes, his tiny chest palpitating, it seemed, with the sight of her -- but really, she knew, with his warbling song. But whenever she leaned down with her outstretched hand, beckoning for him to hop on, he would quickly retreat inot his sanctuary of leaves.
One morning his song is absent, and in her worry she forgets her morning coffee, and stumbles her way through work. That evening, on the bus ride home, she watches the branches of the passing trees, as if expecting him to be hopping along, following for a glance of her. Walking down the sidewalk towards the door of her building, her head down-cast, she almost doesn't see the rustling movement in the foliage above. She reacts just quickly enough to catch his falling body in her cupped hands.
Her heart pounding slowly, she slumps to her knees, gently stroking the brown feathers of his head wtih one numb, shaking finger, and looking down at him through her misting breath: at his beak, parted slightly -- though no sound issues from his frozen throat -- and at his eyes, which seem glazed with joy at her touch, but which she knows are empty of anything but death.
One morning his song is absent, and in her worry she forgets her morning coffee, and stumbles her way through work. That evening, on the bus ride home, she watches the branches of the passing trees, as if expecting him to be hopping along, following for a glance of her. Walking down the sidewalk towards the door of her building, her head down-cast, she almost doesn't see the rustling movement in the foliage above. She reacts just quickly enough to catch his falling body in her cupped hands.
Her heart pounding slowly, she slumps to her knees, gently stroking the brown feathers of his head wtih one numb, shaking finger, and looking down at him through her misting breath: at his beak, parted slightly -- though no sound issues from his frozen throat -- and at his eyes, which seem glazed with joy at her touch, but which she knows are empty of anything but death.