April

July 18th 2023

The sun had begun to rise earlier, and with its presence came the songs of restless birds - sparrows and cardinals - calling to one another in the brisk morning air. Oftentimes, I found myself resting in the soft light, closing my eyes and surrendering to the melodies around me.

One morning, I awoke to the sound of heavy machinery pulling into the front lawn of my home. The commotion forced me from my bed and to the second-story window where I knelt and looked down upon a group of men clamoring about; hauling trowels and buckets and pushing wheelbarrows piled high with red bricks. Two large trucks parked with their rear axles on the lawn, gouging into the thawed earth and I wondered what would come of the tulip bulbs that laid beneath the surface. Shortly later, a third truck arrived. I strained to listen, but even the voice of the mourning dove was overtaken.

I grabbed a long t-shirt and hurried down the stairs. When unlocking the deadbolt and reaching for the door handle, my pinky toe caught on a piece of paper, which had been slipped under the front door at some point in the night. I grabbed it from the floor. It read:

“Thank you for your patience as we make necessary changes to your property.”

Without question, I turned the lock and returned to the solitude of my room.

By the tenth day, I was no longer awoken by the sun in the morning, and the view from my window was replaced with layers upon layers of red and brown bricks, forming a wall around the four corners of my home. I worried for the birds, their home, and their young. I peered upwards, meeting the tired and weary eyes of a young dove. She did not sing.

I laid in bed, soon embracing the darkness.

One morning I woke to a stillness; one I had not experienced in quite some time. The sound of bricklayers, hollering to one another, was replaced with a deafening silence. I sat up and pinched my forearm, forcing myself out of a dream, should I be in one, and found that I was not. I knelt at the window and peered outside, waiting for my eyes to adjust to the abyss, but they refused. I returned to my bed, covering my face with the comforter, and fell asleep. 

Some days later, a soft tapping sound, unlike that of human cause, entered my mind. I drifted in and out of a dazed state, and soon rubbed the sleep from my eyes. I was drawn to the window once again and I searched desperately in the darkness, hoping to discover the source of the sound. Tap tap tap. I sat for a while, squinting, attempting to focus.

Suddenly, a brick fell, revealing a gap halfway up the wall. Sunlight poured through it, lighting the space around me in a soft glow. Tap tap tap. Another brick fell. And another. And soon, another.

Through the gap, the silhouette of a small bird appeared, and it leapt from the edge of the brick that it sat upon, gliding downward and approaching where I knelt in the window. She landed beside me and I recognized her eyes as she sat on the sill, staring curiously up at me. She shook her head, nestling her grey and blue feathers back into place.

Before long, the walls that had been built, creating a darkness so unforgettably profound, were deconstructed, and the bricks that formed them laid strewn about in shattered piles on the ground below me. Leaning out of the window, the sunlight landed on my skin, warming my body. Young sparrow fledglings chirped and danced clumsily, their shadows landing upon my face and shoulders. 

The next morning, I awoke to the sound of a dove, cooing softly into the morning air. I peered outside. It was finally May, and the tulips were in full bloom.