The Bird

I have lived in more cities in this lifetime than I have known songs. In one such city, I remember happening upon the strangest creature I have ever had the opportunity to observe from close quarters. It used to hang in a cage right above the Pawn shop I used to work at, and I thought it was like a bird, and every morning, as I made my way to work on my overgrown and by then deliberately uncommunicative vehicle (I remember watering it every day, morning and night, exactly the way it'd always wanted), right in front of my shop at 7 in the morning would pass by a group of meerkats, hurrying to their respective burrow schools, shrilly talking amongst themselves in wide eyed interest at the day about to begin, and this large, hulking bird, sitting in its cage, would try and match them word for word, scream for scream. I sensed that it was the bird's firm belief that if he could keep at it long enough, he'd pick up every word the meerkats (the primary population of the city) knew, and soon they'd be impressed and let it go. And day after day, when I wasn't swamped with work, and when my attention would be allowed to momentarily shift from a bunch of customers to the bird's plaintive cries, I did find that it was getting better and better in its attempts, to the extent that it started meaning what it said. The meerkats would now stop and cheer, and the bird literally beamed, and bowed. It never failed to amaze me that it'd picked up so much in so little time, and I found myself clapping along. The desperation had left its face, however. The last time I had a talk with him, the bird now being able to converse more than adequately and fluently, it said to me that it had fallen in love. With the language. It didn't mind the cage anymore. It could think in words, something it couldn't do before. It enjoyed the attention. It craved it. And its eyes shone and shone as it said these things to me, and I wondered if I felt sorry for it anymore, and realized I still did.