The Parrot

The first few steps were always measured and slow, so he didn't find them hard to manage. Slightly tipping over on either side, groping the sofa and the dining table, almost tripping over the power plug. It was a small room, cramped with a dining table that was too big for it, and as he got older his slow, practised walk across the room appeared more dangerous each day. His hands scraped something; it turned out to be cream from the half-eaten doughnut lying on the dinner table. He rubbed it off with slow despair and kept on feeling his way across the room. The maid only came once a week now; standing here, feeling as soiled as he could ever remember being, he couldn't understand why he had asked her to do that.

He finally made it to the cage. He fumbled his way around the lock until he found the latch; when he jerked it open, he heard the splash of the little water bowl being turned over. He felt through the numerous things in his coat pocket, things he'd been instructed to keep with him for emergencies, things that he now sullenly carried with him because he knew what could happen without them. The little siren for help; the heart medicine; it seemed he depended more and more on what he carried as he grew older. He finally found the little packet of biscuits. He opened them and started crushing the biscuits into little pieces. His manner grew easier as he kept on; he did this every day, but the first few minutes were always uneasy.

The bird had not uttered a sound, or moved in its cage. It looked uninterestedly at the biscuits, the overturned container of water. It had grown old too. The old man put the crumbs in front of the parrot. The parrot ate them, slowly, deliberately, making enough noise to make the old man stop, not uttering a note more than it needed to. The old man, meanwhile, had picked up the leftovers from the table and was trying to discern what they were. He felt them, gliding his hands over them very slowly. He thought they were from the plate of half eaten food he'd just pushed away at dinner: they were actually three days old. Neither of them knew, and the parrot slowly devoured the little pieces of food kept in front of him.

The old man made an apologetic noise for knocking over the water. The parrot still said nothing. It only stared into space for a few seconds. Then it flew out and slurped some water up from the sink full of dirty dishes. The old man waited, like he'd always waited when this happened. He was tired, but he had tired the parrot out too. The parrot flew back into its cage, having eaten moldy biscuits and three day old food. The old man was oblivious. He thought he'd taken good care of the parrot, his parrot, for one more day. He latched the cage again.

He felt his way across the room with relief. The walk now seemed much easier. No trailing power cable, no obstacles to surprise him, nothing there that he wasn't prepared for. He reached his sofa and fell into it. He flipped on the switch of the radio, the sound flooding the room drowning out his heavy breathing, obvious with relief. He started paying more attention to the news being read out. Slowly he forgot about the parrot, for a little while more. The parrot had forgotten him already.