We miss them when they are gone
One day, a man and a woman walked into the store. They had been married earlier that year. They were spending that year in New York City so the man could go to school. The woman had decided that she would get the man a parakeet for Christmas, because he'd had two parakeets when he was a little boy.
So the woman bought a cage and put it under the Christmas tree. The man liked his present. He and his wife went shopping to buy the parakeet.
They looked at the birds in this store. The man thought they looked sluggish. He doubted that they would buy any birds there. But then the man and the woman heard the store clerks talking. They were saying that several birds had frozen to death that night. They wondered if they would find more dead tomorrow.
The man and the woman looked at each other. They picked out one bird to save.
The clerk put the bird in a little cardboard box with a small air hole. The man and woman carried the bird on the subway and went to their little apartment. The man and woman put the bird in the Christmas cage. They talked to her every day. Sometimes, the man let her out of the cage. The bird would fly to a perch at the highest spot in the room, usually on the top of the curtains.
The man taught the bird to perch on top of the man’s head while he typed his assignments for school. The bird let the man scratch her head under her soft feathers. The bird trusted the man.
The bird loved the little mirror that the man and woman bought her. She would chirp and peck at it. The little mirror had beads on it. The bird would scratch her head on the beads.
The man and woman moved to several homes during the next few years. They got a dog. The couple began to spend a little less time with the bird.
The woman found a stray cat one day in a rainstorm. She took him home. The man watched the dog and cat play. The couple spent a little less time with the bird. One day, the man and the woman brought home a baby girl. The dog and cat got less attention. And the couple spent a lot less time with the bird.
After a while, the bird did not let the man scratch her head. But the man would blow softly on the bird. The bird would puff up her feathers and give a pleasurable little shake.
The man tried to do that at least once every day, usually when he filled the bird’s seed cup. Then the man and woman brought home a baby boy. And they gave the bird less attention. Sometimes feeding the bird was the last thing the man would do before he left for work. He would be in such a rush that he did not even look at the bird.
The girl and the boy grew big and strong. Meanwhile, year after year, the little bird stayed in her cage, a constant, reassuring presence. She did not get much attention, but sometimes the children would focus on her and give her a lot of attention. Sometimes she would chirp, and the man would stop what he was doing and blow on the bird.
Then, one day, the boy told his mother that the bird was not moving. The bird was on the floor of the cage.
The man found a spot under the tall trees and dug a hole. He placed the bird, her seed cup and the little mirror inside a plastic box. The man took a close look at the mirror and realized that it had not been cleaned in some time. It was so dirty that there was no way the bird could have seen herself in the mirror any more. The man felt badly about that.
He put the little plastic box in the hole and buried it. Then the man blew softly on the dirt and cried.