"Happiness is the interval between periods of unhappiness..."
--Don Marquis
For this blog I'm taking a risk. I'm going to self-publish a very short story I wrote several years ago. I don't think many people read this blog, but if anyone I don't know reads this, likes my story, steals it and then publishes it as their own, acquiring fame and fortune as a result, I'll have no one to blame but myself--and I will enter quite a long period of unhappiness.
It's a lot to read on a computer screen, so I'd better get started. This is dedicated to Jenn by the way, a dear old college friend of mine who is recuperating from quite a health scare. She loves literature and the English language and always encouraged me to write and express myself, frequently tolerating my mangled attempts to do just that. Get well soon Jenn!
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HUMMINGBIRD
by R.E. Scott
It's just another glass box, the place where I work. There's nothing special about that. Same as the place where you work probably, where almost everybody works nowadays. Except that there was this hummingbird, you see. Every day at around two o'clock, it would appear outside my small office window on the fourth floor and it would hover and dart, hover and dart, before diving down and disappearing into the shrubs outside the lobby.
At first, it was a cute diversion, a fleeting moment of natural beauty to distract from the mundane workday. But one day, as the clock on my computer read "2:00", I began to get a vague sense that this little bird was trying to tell me something. I know birds can't talk and hummingbirds don't chirp, but there was something...symbolic going on here and I didn't want to miss it.
In college, I did poorly in English lit, struggling to put the reason to the rhyme and differentiate simile from metaphor. If I didn't devote some time to this puzzle, I could very easily miss the meaning. And for some reason, I just had to have the answer.
I stood up and stared at the hummingbird. At times, he would hover for an instant right in front of my eyes. To me, all hummingbirds looked happy--bright, blue-green lightning birds with smiling beaks and a twinkle in their eye. This one was no different. Yet it was different. This bird chose to come here, to my window, every day at 2:00. Why? I never saw any other hummingbirds at the office park. Flowers were in short supply--there certainly weren't any outside my window. Yet here was the bird. And it would come tomorrow. And the next day. And the next...
I couldn't work the rest of the day. I shuffled papers around on my desk, stared out the window. I went to the cooler and drank fifteen of those little "spit cups" of water. Hummingbirds were on my mind all the way home.
The meaning of the hummingbird was always a problem I worked on in the back of my mind. More and more I looked forward to the daily appearance of the little fella. I would check my watch and rush to the window in childlike anticipation. I would drop everything just to watch the little bird fly.
One day, a meeting ran long and I didn't make it back to my office until nearly three o'clock. When I looked out my window, I didn't see the hummingbird. It was usually there flitting around until well after three, but not always. I was disappointed of course and I cursed upper management for their tendency toward long-winded speeches and meaningless PowerPoint displays. I should have slipped out for a bathroom break to see the hummingbird. I told myself that I would not let myself miss the hummingbird again.
The next day was a Friday and at two o'clock my nose was practically pressed against the glass looking for the hummingbird. I looked everywhere, but it had not yet arrived. I squinted my eyes--hummingbirds had a knack for blending in, they were so small--but 2:15 became 2:30, which became 2:52, and still the bird did not arrive. I felt acid well up in my stomach. This is ridiculous, I thought to myself, getting this worked up over a little bird. But the pain was there and growing worse by the second. By 5:00, it was nearly time to go home and I had to admit that the bird would not appear. I hadn't even noticed how my co-workers stared at me as they walked past my office. One of the middle managers had stopped in asking for a report and I could barely look at her, consumed as I was by trying not to miss the hummingbird. I resolved to stop by the office on Saturday, just to see if my bird had become a "weekend warrior". I told myself I could catch up on some projects, but I didn't really care about that. I just had to find my bird.
I sat in my office all day Saturday. It was a beautiful spring day, sunny and brisk. I had told my wife that I was working on a special project and I didn't know how long I would have to work. She had looked at me suspiciously, but kissed me sweetly nonetheless before I walked out the door. The kiss didn't make me tingle like it used to. I didn't want to waste time.
I stared out the window, reacting to every sudden movement that came into my field of view. A butterfly with greenish markings nearly caused my heart to leap out of my chest. Night fell. I had to go home. I began to resign myself to the fact that the hummingbird would never reappear.
On Monday I got up, showered, dressed and ate. I picked up my briefcase from it's designated place at the foot of the coat rack, put my hand on the doorknob and froze. I began to sob. I'm 43 years old. My mother died when I was young. But I hadn't sobbed like this since I was in the third grade. My wife had already left for work. My kids had already departed for school. I was alone in my house and I sat down on the throwrug, the one we had bought at Pier One, and I just cried like a baby. I couldn't bear the thought of another day at work. My hummingbird had flown away. What was there to go back to? I pulled myself together enough to call in sick, took off all of my clothes and went back to bed. I had never before cried so much in one day. I broke that record the next day.
My wife and kids are staying with my sister-in-law. I keep my company's pink slip beside me on the dresser, unopened. I never figured out for sure what the hummingbird was trying to tell me, or if the whole experience meant anything at all. (I wish I had done better in English lit!) My days are haunted by a peculiar dread, my mind turning a question over and over inside my head: what if seeing that hummingbird in the window was as good as my life was ever going to get?
I refuse to answer and I pull the covers over my head.
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Peace...
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