Reverse Migration

Rocking slowly, barefoot, she studies birds. Each flip of the page reveals a new species, and she scans her backyard in search of—what is it again?—a yellow-shafted Northern Flicker. But there's nothing—not an oriole, not a robin, none of the birds she can identify without her book. Nothing there but the broken dishwasher squatting on the deck, waiting to be junked. Beyond the waving branches, the gray sky flashes white.

Reluctantly, she sets the book aside and draws the laptop near. She should finish today; she should buckle down and do it. She makes a mental note and tacks it to the wall of her imagination, for all her thoughts to see. Do not disturb!

Do not disturb me, bird book! Do not disturb me, silent, invisible birds! Do not disturb me, boredom. . . .

She types and types. She makes tiny, frantic circles on the touchpad with her fingertip. Behind the noise of pounded keys, there's a growling rumble and the imaginary echo of her mother's voice calling her inside. Remove these electronics from this aluminum shell of a room—a room under trees, for Heaven's sake! But this idea of shifting, of detaching and then reattaching, is more than she can bear just now.

The rain falls hard, and everything grows dim. Annoyed, she reaches for the floor lamp and ramps up the dial as far as it will go. It hardly helps.

Lightning strikes nearby, and she glances up—a reflex, but it's enough. How can she work through this? The sound: frenetic drumbeats, millions of them. The smell: pine-needle-y, damp, woodpile-ish. The sight: limbs arching across the deck like wings on a mammoth mama bird.

Fat drops cling to the undersides of everything. They swell, they pop, they fall. They rain dance on the bleached wood planks amidst fallen leaves, broken twigs, and nail pops. The grill cover, slick with wet, glistens. She watches and waits and then—


A splash of red, right there, right in front of her. A cardinal sways and nibbles at tiny seed kernels. She can't take her eyes off it, even though the lawn needs mowing and the weeds weave in and out of the rusty wire-mesh fence and the dishwasher's still there—still ugly—with its pulled-plug wires and corrugated tubing flapping in the wind. (She makes another mental note—“Call for special pickup.”—and files it under ALREADY FORGOTTEN.)

She watches the bird hop and peck. She rocks, pushing off the grey carpet with her big toe. The rain tapers off, leaving trees and grass a garish green, the green of gloopy icing on a three-year-old's birthday cake. Sweet. Pretty, even.

The storm passes quickly overhead. Next door, a bird, unidentifiable, laughs to himself: "Heee—a-heee—a-heee!" Her cardinal flies sunward—unfiled, untacked. She makes another mental note, elbows resting on her knees. Go on, she says, waving her words in the air, disturb me! Shake me, blow in with rain, wind, and birds!

This life, she says, is short.