AUTHOR’S SUGGESTED MUSICAL PAIRING:

NEITHER DO THEY SPIN

1.

Humans tend to keep things in cages. We start with our ribs, stick stacked on stick, two sets of hands holding the whole thing together, slop and warmth and winding tubes. We used to put another cage on top of that, whalebone this time, pulled tight as a shell around a missile. A million others followed: matryoshka dolls, turduckens, dead end careers, cages to make you frightened or make you feel safe. It all depends on what you believe. It all depends on the cage.

2.

Harold is a parakeet with a blue Easter basket belly. He clasps the brass wires, stares with his head upside down. He has learned a few words from listening to us talk - Buttercup, dinner, shut up, lost. Mostly, though, he has learned our silence. He never sings.

Buttercup told me it was foolish to take the budgie from my aunt’s house after she disappeared. He said there was no point in having a bird for a pet. He said he hoped we would be gone soon too.

“You’ll just end up making each other miserable,” Buttercup said.

A magazine I found says to get a parakeet a mirror for company. Instead, I press my face against the wires and let Harold flutter his beak against my lips and cheeks. I am not sure if he likes it. I am not sure if I do either. The days are long, and there are so few of us left.

3.

Some call it a rapture. Our friends vanished, every bit of them: toes, silk robes, car keys, penny loafers. I am numb to it now. My husband Buttercup says we are stuck. He says we are choking on too much air. We debate the possible reasons for why we are still here: our sins, our jabs, our many transgressions.

Years ago, before all this, he read an article that suggested using air freshener can make a person infertile, so we each took turns spraying the bottle directly into our faces. Maybe this is what stalls us. Maybe it is because we bought the kind of coffee maker with the disposable cups. It could be a lot of things. I try not to think about it too much.

It’s like that old joke. A woman sells her soul to the devil. She never missed it.

4.

“Harold,” I coo, “the world is ending. Can you tell, Harold Baby? You’re such a pretty bird. You’re such a pretty turd. I think there might be too much space. The world is so big. I might climb in there with you.”

Tilting his head to the side, Harold hops along his beam. He says nothing when I beg him to reply.

He is a gymnast. He is an acrobat. He thinks I am the silliest of mothers. His quiet fills the house.

5.

People vanish so often we barely notice. I lost count a while ago. They are exonerated. I am ossified. Cars clutter the highways, and the grass is overgrown. One day I kneel in the yard and light each individual blade like the wick of a candle. We move two blocks over after the lawn burns up; neither one of us speaks another word about it.
            I spend the day spread out on top of a car in the sun just to see how long I can stand it. A pretty long time, it turns out.

6.

Buttercup wants to be raptured. He reads and reads and talks in his sleep in a low voice like the hum of a radiator about philosophy and kindness and empathy and purpose, about tarot and Buddha and pigs’ heads on sticks. He gets mixed up, and he stops making sense. He sits up and asks why they don’t put pills in tacos anymore. Go back to sleep, I say. I toss and turn. His words are black ice.

Each morning, he is still there, fingertips and organs, hair and teeth. His mouth is the mouth of a hound dog, drooping and wet. He will not look at me as I make pancakes in a wedding dress I found.

The house is dark except by the window. There, in the white light, Harold makes a racket. He greets the sun, hip-hopping like nothing is the matter. It almost sounds as if he is singing.

“Buttercup,” I say. “Don’t you see that we are lucky?”

No one else gets to keep a person, I insist. We have been given a gift. There is something to be said for togetherness. I try not to bang the griddle. I try not to drop batter on my dress. I am a river of thin smiles.

Harold chirps louder now.

“Maybe it’s your fault after all,” Buttercup cuts. “You have me by the ankles. You don’t want to be redeemed, and God knows it. I should have gone ages ago. It’s you. You’re the one keeping me here.”

Harold’s warbling tastes like orange slices and lavender and gasoline.

“Listen,” I say. “Harold knows a song.”

Buttercup ignores me. He says he’s going to leave for good this time. Maple syrup coats my fingers. I turn away from the door and make no move to stop him. I don’t want to see the light slip in through the crack of the frame and swallow him. I don’t want to beg him to stay. When the door clicks, I turn around again to stare at the darkness for a while.

Harold’s cage glitters in the glow from the kitchen window. He is quiet.

“Just us now, Harold,” I whisper.

I watch as the words drift from my mouth and suspend in the vacuumed air like floating orbs. Harold does not answer. As I approach his cage, I see the shut door and the filthy sandpaper, the cracked seeds, the bruised apple slice, but he is not there. Harold is gone now too. The morning light is cold and all aflame.