Windows

Windows

A father bird went out in the morning to gather food for his young. After flying long and hard and not finding much, he stopped to rest in a window box with dead plants.



The scene inside the window looked promising. A happy little dog bounded into the room to greet his master on such a beautiful morning. The man rolled over, yelled something not worth repeating, and knocked the dog into the wall. It was then that father bird noticed the empty bottles and cans. The dog slinked away, whimpering and cowering. Father bird flew away, with anger clouding his mind.



After more searching and still finding no food, father bird stopped in another window box.



This box held bright flowers and promised of seed and worms. Father scratched up some just as the window shutters opened. He thought the falling sprinkles were water but they were a young woman's tears. She looked down at father bird and asked "Do you fear the night little one? It holds many dark secrets.." Father bird noticed the woman had bluish handprints around her throat. He could bear no more and abandoned the seeds.



After another long flight with no luck, father bird stopped at a bird bath with a feeder close by. As he refreshed himself in the water, a tap at a sliding door caught his attention. A child stood with his nose against the glass. Not wanting to bear any more sadness, he was about to fly on, but the child made movement that it would upset him. Instead father bird fluffed his feathers and sang as he bathed.



The child's parents joined him at the window. He stopped and pointed at father bird in excitement. The mother signed, "I see" and father bird knew that the boy could not hear. The mother and father had tears in their eyes. Father bird then realized that, at this distance and with the door closed, the parents could not hear him either. Father bird sang louder, not so they could hear, but because he knew that the parents were seeing him as their child did, with no sound.



After gathering seeds happily at the feeder, father bird flew home. He fed his family, then gathered his own children in his wings and looked at his beautiful, happy wife. He then told them all the things that the windows had taught him about the strange, and het sometimes wonderful, lives of humans and how they bring joy and comfort to them.