The Blue Bird

The bird showed up unexpectedly. Remy heard a knock at the door so he tripped over the many blankets that were tossed around the living room to see who had interrupted his quiet morning. When he opened the door, it took him a moment to notice a pretty monogrammed card tied to a small wire cage with his name written nicely on it. It took a shorter amount of time for him to notice the lack of anyone else standing in the very long hallway. He paused and stared at the small blue bird staring up at him from the cage, wondering what would happen to it if he just closed the door. 

Remy stood and contemplated his choices for a moment. The holidays were often stressful enough for him without thinking about another life to care for, no matter how small. The blue bird chirped softly and Remy jumped, re-focusing on the problem at hand. Leaning down quickly, he picked up the cage and carried it inside. New York in December was frigid and even though Remy hated the holidays, it didn’t mean he was going to let the poor bird freeze, no matter how idiotic the gift-giver was. 

Blankets and trash seemed to stare up at Remy from the floor. He stared back as he held the cage in his shaking hand. The mess seemed to fill the room and suck the oxygen right out of Remy’s lungs. His breath got shallow and his eyes started glazing over with the weight of all he had to do. The bird chirped. Remy’s gaze snapped down to the bird and he shook his head slightly, walking over to the kitchen and setting the cage down gently. He leaned over and stared into the blue bird’s tiny little eyes. 

When Remy’s phone rang, he startled and looked around the room. The ringtone was muffled so he shrugged sadly and pulled out a chair to sit down, but before he could, the blue bird started screaming. Remy jumped up with wide eyes, how could something so tiny make such a terrible noise? Quickly realizing it was the ringtone that was setting the blue bird off, he started off in search of the phone. After a few attempts of picking up blankets and throwing them back down, probably back on top of the phone, the ringing stopped. 

Remy glanced back towards the blue bird and sighed. It had stopped screaming but now was just looking at him with an expectant look in its eyes. The ringing started again. Remy cursed at the caller and ran around the room as the bird continued the piercing scream. Realizing the futility of possibly uncovering and covering the phone again, Remy started to sloppily fold the blankets and toss them on the couch. Finally, the ringing was unmuffled and Remy shouted in glee. It stopped ringing as soon as he picked it up. 

Looking at the caller ID, Remy realized it was his sister who was calling, he rolled his eyes and tossed the phone down on the counter, knowing he would never answer that call. Sighing a sigh that sounded like the last breath out of his lungs, Remy sat down and set his head on the counter. That small amount of excursion had exhausted him. It wasn’t that he was out of shape or anything. Sometimes your mood controls how much energy you have and Remy’s eyes started drooping. 

Across the counter, Remy saw the bottle of pills. They seemed to taunt him, telling him all kinds of comforting lies. It felt like the counter was swallowing him, his body sunk deep, deeper than seemed humanly possible. His skin should be part of his bones by now. Remy was so distracted by the pain, that when the phone rang and the bird started screaming, he almost screamed himself. He jumped up and, without thinking, answered it. 

“H-hello?” his sister’s voice was quiet and heartbreakingly hopeful on the other end. 

“Oh yea, hi, sorry,” Remy stumbled over the words, there were books of things he wanted to say to her, he wanted to apologize for being so wrapped up in this life sucking sadness that he couldn’t even see her, he wanted to beg for her to save him, he wanted for her to tell the whole world what was wrong with him so maybe somebody would have an answer, he wanted her to never have a single clue that her big sibling was so depressingly pathetic. 

“How are you?” her sweet voice made tears come uninvited to Remy’s tired eyes. 

“I’m,” He cleared his throat, “I’m pretty good!” Remy rolled his eyes and shook his head, even Chick-Fil-A employees didn’t sound THAT happy. There was silence on the other side. 

“Did you get my gift?” she asked. Remy paused and looked at the bird, 

“Oh, yea, um… it’s nice, thanks.” Why the hell would she give him a bird? He had no clue how to take care of something like this, much less did he want to take care of something like this. Just then, the doorbell rang and Remy stared at it for a minute. Today had been too exciting already, he didn’t really want to see what would happen next. 

“Do you have a friend over?” the voice over the phone sounded so hopeful that Remy couldn’t stand to disappoint her yet again. 

“Yea, yea I do, I should probably go, thanks for calling.” Remy raised the pitch on the last word, hoping she would not realize how depressing his voice sounded. 

“Yea of course, have fun!” Remy hung up and set the phone on the counter again, glaring at the bird before making his way to the door through his recently tidied living room.  Opening the door, Remy saw a package sitting on his welcome mat, he peered around the doorway and a delivery person waved cheerfully at him from a few doors down. He picked up the package and rushed back inside. Remy collapsed back on the couch and ripped the package open, inside was a beautiful old chess board, engraved with a message from his sister at the bottom, I love you forever, Renee.

Remy teared up, he had taught his sister how to play as soon as she could pick up the pieces. It had suddenly become their favorite thing to do together. When they were fighting, one of them would pull out the old chess board and the fight would be forgotten, if they hadn’t seen each other in a long time and the reunion was awkward, they would pull out the chess board and be laughing and trash talking within seconds. He suddenly felt terrible about how he had responded when she asked if he had gotten her gift, thinking it was the bird, he had sounded less than enthused. 

Remy jumped up and ran to grab his phone, in doing that, he knocked the cage over into the sink and the blue bird flew out, screaming yet again. Remy yelled at the flapping wings and waved his arms wildly, trying to grab the thing. The blue bird weaved around the apartment and then dropped to the floor, hopping in and around the piles of trash. Remy started throwing things around, trying to locate the little jerk. However, as it was with the blankets and phone, he was unable to find the blue bird through all the mess. 

Muttering under his breath with annoyance and worry combined, Remy rushed to get a trash bag and started throwing stuff away. Old takeout boxes, tissues, paper ripped out of notebooks, and other trash went into the bag, one by one. Soon, the living room started looking like something you could actually live in. As he grabbed another takeout box with noodles falling down the side, the blue bird hopped out of its hiding place and stood there silently as Remy crept up not-so-silently. 

“Ah-ha!” victory was his as he deposited the blue bird back in it’s cage gently.

The phone rang again and this time it almost seemed as if the blue bird started screaming first. Remy hurriedly picked it up and answered before realizing it was a facetime call from his sister. As his weary face popped up on the screen, Remy almost hung up and threw his phone back down on the counter. But something stopped him, he wasn’t sure what. Maybe it was the fact that he actually wanted to talk to someone, he actually wanted to hear a familiar voice, he actually, finally, wanted help. 

“Okay so I know I must be annoying you today but that was kind of rude what you did before. I put a lot of thought into that gift and all you had to say was that it was nice?” Renee stopped expectantly, with a look of both concern and frustration on her face. “I mean chess was always something that brought us together and I don’t know what changed, Remy what did I-” 

“I’m sorry,” Remy cut her off, “I’m sorry Renee, honestly, I hadn’t opened your gift yet and I just responded with the first thing that popped into my head.” The siblings went silent, perhaps wondering what would happen next. “Ca- can we play?” Remy asked quietly, then immediately panicked, realizing what his apartment must look like to someone who might not know that he had spent most of the last few months sleeping on the couch and hardly moving. 

Renee started squealing her excitement and told him she just had to grab her board. As she was gone, Remy looked around to figure out what angles he would have to use to hide the mess from his younger sister, but then blanched. The apartment looked okay. There was a full trash bag in the corner and his mother would never approve of how the blankets were folded, there were stains on the floor and the couch looked like it would have a permanent indentation of his butt. However, it didn’t look like a squatter lived here anymore. Remy whipped around to stare at the blue bird and tears of gratitude filled his eyes. 

Walking over to the cage, he stared at the small blue bird who stared right back at him, he picked up the note tied to the cage and looked deeply at his name written neatly in cursive. Flipping the card over, he noticed that there was writing on the back of it as well. Remy gasped softly and soaked in the words that he hoped would solve this mystery. 

I hope this bird will help you as much as it helped me. When it helps you do what you need to do, all I ask is that you show the same kindness to someone else. 

Remy stared at the words for a moment, he looked back around the apartment, at the open facetime call with his sister and his tears fell freely down his face. 

“Okay so I have my board, who did you play last time? Do you remember?” Remy glanced at the screen and held it up to his face shamelessly. 

“Renee I need to talk to you.” As Remy shared his secrets with his sister, he marveled at the bird, who had gotten him to accomplish more today than he had been able to in months. Who had gotten him to open up more than he ever had. Who had maybe even saved his life. 

The siblings cried tears of joy and sorrow together, at the pain that was being felt, and at the courage that was being shown. 

~~~

Lucy was sitting by herself in the dark when she heard the ringing of the doorbell. She didn’t move an inch, afraid of what could come from the shadows if she did. Her breath got loud as the air seemed to grow quieter and heavy. That was when the sound came, when the room couldn’t possibly seem to get any darker or quieter, Lucy heard the song. She tilted her head to one side as she tried to listen, forgetting the dark for a moment. The song was quiet, peaceful, hopeful. Lucy moved an inch. Then another. When the darkness did not move, it’s grip on her seemed to weaken. The song gave her strength and she stood. Walking towards the door, Lucy felt as if she was in a trance, the darkness never let her move this much without crippling her with fear and insecurity. 

When Lucy opened the door and saw the cage, she gasped with a childlike delight. The darkness in the apartment and in her head seemed to flee to every corner as if it was its turn to be afraid. Lucy looked down at the bird with a lopsided smile, a bird that looked back up at her with a challenge in its eyes.