Flightless Feathers

I came home to find a juvenile House Finch dead at my back door. I know it wasn’t either of my animals because they were inside all day. “It must have been one of the cats who comes around.” I told The Hurricane. “It must have killed it at my feeder and left it at the back door.”

“Maybe he’s courting Lola and brought it for her.” The Hurricane said. 

I thought it was a valid point, but my mother said, “No. I don’t think it was for Lola. What if the rodeo cowboy is shapeshifting into a cat and he left it for you.”

I said, “The last thing the rodeo cowboy is thinking about is me.”

Truth is, the rodeo cowboy is a bit of a shapeshifter. I didn’t get much sleep in Italy. I had nightmares every night. Every night, the rodeo cowboy would shapeshift into a young, mean, brown woman, who would try to kill me. I would reach for my gun, but it never worked, or it had no bullets, or it jammed. I’d wake up sweating and sad. Sometimes I just cried and remembered quoting Bob Dylan to him once: “You can make me cry if you don’t know.”

Coming home to a dead bird rattled me. I spend so many hours of my day saving them. Even one dead one hurts. After I disposed of the dead bird, I went to put my pajamas on and there was a big spider on them. Anansi. I killed it and put the pj’s on. Then I saw Lola had a partial bird feather in her mouth and I couldn’t explain it. She wasn’t the one who killed the finch. I caught her and took what was left of the feather from her. It was the Hooded Crow feather I found in the ruins of Pompeii.

I had enough flightless feathers for one night so I turned out the lights and went to bed. I have never been this haunted in my life. I have never promised so much and left so fast. And those promises weren’t lies. I truly loved and cared for the rodeo cowboy, and always will. I miss him like I haven’t missed anyone before. It is an actual physical pain only momentarily relieved when I can cry or sleep.