Birds of a Feather

The picture is simple. It's the black silhouette of a small grey and white cockatiel in front of a sunset, his crest halfway up because he's finally realized that I've been standing behind him, intruding on his private viewing of the sunset.

He doesn't know, but I have been watching for many minutes, shrouded in the dark of the kitchen as he sits in a room full of windows atop his cage, simply watching. He flew himself here at sundown like always and I'm sure he doesn't think I know that either.

But I do.

Because as much time as he spends watching me, I spend watching him. More often than not, I'm cataloging every last expression he has. Every preference. Every molecule of his existence, I am collecting.

There is always a day when you wish for more and do not have enough.

That is a mistake I'm unwilling to make twice.

So I followed him when he flapped his strong white-shouldered wings through the house. I followed him at the exact distance of his memory so that I could observe him without his heirs in place. He's as proud as they come. When someone is around, he will never be caught off guard. But he is never arrogant by himself. What show is there to put on? Who does he have to impress? The reflection and that's all.

By himself, he's like any human. A bit quiet. Silly. And deeply fascinated by his own interests.

There are bits and pieces of him that break my heart. He'll whistle to himself when he's pleased, but quietly of course. He grooms his reflection with doting care. And every so often, he'll drag pieces of his food over to me so that we can eat together because, for all the show, he is the most generous creature I know.

And here he was, watching the sunset.

I had my camera on and ready, set up before I rushed over so that when the moment came, I could take his picture. He likes that too, picture taking. He wants to see them all. This was one he quite liked. It's too easy to wonder if he saw what I saw in this picture.

Inside that dark silhouette, framed by the pink and purple, there is a story I don't have to tell. A simple story we've understood at one point or another.

I couldn't hope to encapsulate the desires of a bird's heart in words nor could I even begin to comprehend the breadth of feeling he sees looking at the expanse of sky with his different eyes. But I know the story when I see it.

And it is there, in the subtle slant to his shoulders. I know by the way his crest relaxes and the way he grinds his beak as the brightest colors come out to play in the settling dark of night that he is living exactly the life he wants to live.

I will remember him.

There are jars of his feathers stored away for display and pictures upon pictures to capture his moods but this was a special one. This picture reached past documenting the memories and instead captured a smallness to him that I had not previously seen.

He is just a little bird in front of a big world.

It doesn't worry him at all. Doesn't make him nervous. The bigness framed against his smallness makes his awe a deep thing and the brilliant, blazing sunset against his monochromatic colors, shocks me as though I've climbed some mountain.

He is so small but the world still fits around him. It hugs him as tightly as it does me.

When I look at him these days, I don't see a bird or a pet or a family member. I see an animal that enjoys watching the sunset in silence. I see a feathered creature admiring the spread of the sky. I see him appreciating the neon, red-touched pink painting bright stripes across the sky.

But in the end, it's just a bird falling in love with a sunset.

And I'm just a person falling in love with the sunset too.

Birds of a feather then. Ah well, I guess we do stick together.