Birdwatching

“What are you doing?”

Wilson clambered up the side of the mattress, kneading imaginary bread on my pillow.

“What do you mean?”

It was early, and I wasn’t ready to entertain the idea of doing just yet.

“The birds are waiting for you.”

He continued his morning routine, rolling his face into my cheek and lingering for me to kiss his forehead.

“They’ll have to wait a little longer.”

I kissed him and, unusually, drifted back into a deep slumber, having decided that it was easier than facing the day.

“Hey!”

Wilson patted my nose twice with his fluffy paw, the pink toes flashing in front of my eyes like jelly beans in the glass bins at the candy store where I used to indulge before the movies.

“Stop it!”

I swatted his paw away, rolling laboriously to find a place in the bed not yet sapped of the sunless chill and burying my face, hoping that something refreshing would help pull me out of this strange funk.

“What if I were a bird?”

He found the mountain of my body beneath the sheets, scaled gracefully up my spine, and perched between my shoulders.

“Then you would fly instead of prowl.”

If I had wings, I wondered how difficult it would be to ascend from the nest of my ruffled bed because every muscle in my body still felt asleep, disinterested in the concept of rising and trudging through another weary day.

“How would I know which way to fly?”

Obsessed with hygiene, he began licking between his toes, rocking my body in the intentional movements.

“Your surroundings, I suppose.”

I momentarily tracked the steps back from my high school to my mother’s home, little details like blackberries, full and ripe for just one day or the star shaped rock that always remained in the same spot on the root ruptured sidewalk, scurrying to my forethought as if insects from an overturned rock.

“What if my surroundings changed?”

He purred as if pleased by the point he was trying to make, the soothing vibrations soaking into my oiled skin, eventually sinking through my bones, coursing within the marrow.

“You’re right.”

I sighed, aching with disappointment as I realized it was the first day since we’d been living in the cozy loft that I hadn’t watched the scene out the window while drinking my tea—a habit I had kept so religiously yet managed to forget that morning for the sake of rest.

“Enlighten me.”

Wilson played naïve as he skittered off my shoulders, his orange stretch of torso cascading down the side of the bed, plodding on the hardwood.

“The mourning dove, the magpie, the sparrow, how will they know which way to go if we’re not looking out the window—a painting, a marker of space?”

I had finally summoned the courage to move, which began with a miniscule twitch and ended with the arching of my back, a vulture-like hunch carved in my spine.

“Still, they will know north, but it will be different, no?”

He meandered toward the window, tail flicking as he swayed, and his whiskers pricked when he approached the glass, settling on his hinds to gaze at the happenings below.

“I’m too worried to watch the birds today.”

The confession sat so heavy in my chest that the curve of my back snapped, and I fell forward into the pillow again, crying against the pain of anxiety coursing through my being.

“Why?”

I peeked at him between the pillow and bunched sheet, but he didn’t look back at me and, instead, settled deeper onto the floor, stretching toward his flank and playfully watching the neighborhood sideways.

“We have to eat; I can’t make money watching the birds.”

I couldn’t make a living doing most things I love, turns out.

“Could you one day?”

His ears pricked at the hammer of a nearby woodpecker while his head swiveled systematically, looking for the creature, and I remembered when he was so young and small that all he could chase was a mayfly on my ex-girlfriend's patio.

“Maybe.”

Possibility seized my body, but I wasn’t quite ready to face the birds.

“Are you afraid of disappointing them?”

He finally looked back at me, the amber gleam of his knowing eyes full of patience.

“It was different before.”

I finally rose, sitting upright and then standing awkwardly like a marionette whose strings were tethered to the ceiling.

“Things change.”

His tail flicked in excitement, and he watched me as I lingered by the foot of the bed.

“I used to have so much time for them, identifying and naming every one, but now all I have to give is this pathetic, lackluster afternoon.”

I tiptoed carefully toward the window, later than ever and unsure if it was worth the trouble.

“It is better than nothing.”

Finally, I settled beside him at the window, having forgotten half the names of the birds or the reasons why I thought they were so noteworthy, and it wasn’t the same passion I always exuded on my mornings spent with Wilson and our airborne friends, but it was the best I could manage then.