L
ast week’s editorial page lay rumpled on my floor; graying letters dampwrinkled; with edges curling upward.
Sunflower seeds piled in one corner, a plastic mirror and its silenced bell in
the other. How that bell drove me crazy with its incessant, cheap-metal jingle.
It wasn’t really so bad, in retrospect.
Who would have thought I’d miss the annoying tickle-poke of tiny claws
scratching up and down my wires, across and every which-way, but I do.
And the musty fragrance of pastel feathers, some of which are still stuck to
me—fluffy reminders of chirps and cackles that used to be…
when I was someone’s home.