Our window stays open
“All the green has finally exploded and I’m looking out a windowfull of it. I can’t remember my dreams these days and I have to say I feel better when I wake up. Even if the birds were early and I had to close the window.”
It's not even 8 AM and nearing 20º C. We're apparently meant to bust the 30 mark, but I don't mind. Not at this time of year. Besides, there's still a hint of coolness underneath, as if the walls of our home still cling to winter. Heat in May is normal now, and green has indeed exploded—like last year, like all the years before that.
But the birds don't sing anymore.
Every spring and summer for the past twenty years we've woken up to a veritable cacophony. We're surrounded by trees, a mountain, a river ten minutes away—avian paradise for god's sake. So that ritual, that loud and wild morning choir of endless verses in endless loops, the bickering of crows crashing the party, the stern replies and melodies... we never thought twice about it. This was our life, our spot, our town, an integral part of this existence we so easily take for granted. You never miss what's there.
We can scrape and hope and try, but I can't help feeling we're mostly witnesses at this point.
Wait. I hear a few of them now.
Just a few—far, far away.
