(54 years ago)

news&updates

Oct
24

a cardinal comes a-calling

Now I don’t want to start off by casting aspersions, although given the fact that the following might lead you to believe the girl in question is either a witch or has witch-like abilities, casting might be a good choice of words.

The aspersions part is where it gets dicey.

She might even like being called a witch these days. I’m certain that she’d love being thought of as possessing witch-like powers.

In the good and bad old days, whenever she wanted me to think about her she would send dragonflies. Sometimes a lone dragonfly, sometimes she’d send them by the horde. Or swarm. Or whatever a group of dragonflies is called. Sometimes I’d be happy to see them and sometimes it would cause my heart to ache.

It’s been awhile since I’ve talked to her so I was surprised to find that apparently she’s upgraded her spellbook.

Now she sends a cardinal to tap on the window outside my kitchen. Every day now for a week. Two or three times a day. Tap tap tap tap tap tap.

And before you start to give me the various perfectly reasonable reasons that a bird might tap on a window, just know that I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that this bird is her doing.

Now all there is left to do is figure out why.

Is she thinking about me?

Is she in trouble? (again)

Does she regret leaving me?

I want to pluck the bird out of the air and yell these questions at it until it gives in and spills the beans. Frothing at the mouth and pointing out that I wouldn’t even have to change the initials KFC. “The C can just as easily be for cardinal.”

I’ve never been adept at threatening birds. Never quite sure when frothing is appropriate.

There was always a reason behind the dragonflies and now I’m left wondering why she has sent a Cardinalis cardinalis after all this time.

Why not a carrier pigeon? That way I can strap a note to its leg asking her why she has chosen to send a bird instead of picking up the phone.

Then of course I wonder if I’m jumping to the wrong conclusion and the cardinal is just a way of saying goodbye. A symbol that she’s found someone else and is happy. Letting me know I can stop worrying about her.

Which I still do.

They say birds are just what remain of the dinosaurs. In the same way I guess that a cardinal is what remains of the monstrous brontosaurus-like feelings I used to have for her. Romantic lumberings through the forest of poor metaphors reduced to pecking on a window.

I want to wait until Halloween and send a swarm of bats to engulf her. Circle her until she is lost from sight. And when the flittering dark cloak is finally pulled back she will be dressed head to toe in black with a pointy hat perched atop her head and a broomstick in her hand.

Why? Because cardinals are songbirds, but all I get is tap tap tap tap tap tap.

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