(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Four birds in the window [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2023-07-27 like dreams in the morning, in the morning like dreams they hang for a moment, in a moment they leave like a dream in the morning, in the morning a dream i see you eliza, i see you i see you eliza, eliza i see i see you eliza, eliza i see four birds in the window, in the window now three “I didn’t have time to cook tonight. You wanna go get a sandwich or something?” “Sure.” We hop in the car. He just got his permit but he didn’t ask me if he could drive, and that surprised me a bit. He barely made it into this world, almost six weeks premature and with the umbilical cord wrapped around his neck, and then not even fifteen months after he made it in, his mother shockingly left it behind. Little by little, but then all at once, I see a man emerging from the shell of a child. He’s grown tall, and strong, and confident: a place I so wanted to get to at his age, but never could. “You want a sandwich or Chinese?” “I dunno,” he replied, barely audible. “Well, I already ate. I had some leftovers.” “Alright. Chinese.” “The usual?” “Yeah.” I call in the order, the usual: sesame chicken and two egg rolls. It’ll be ten, they tell me. Ten minutes, I tell him. Let’s just drive around. OK, he says. We drive around the dirty old town, the town I never dreamed he would grow up in. Oh, how sideways things went, I think. We drive around the dirty old town, not a word between us, but the silence not awkward. I can still see him, fourteen, fifteen years ago. We used to call him Puffy, what with the cotton-candy like cloud of blond hair rising high off the top of his head. He had that puffy head of hair and these chubby rosy-red cheeks that no one could resist. I remember driving around with him, looking back into my rear-view to see if had fallen asleep, the way you would think a two year old might. The way my other, older kids, would fall asleep in the car. He’d just keep those eyes open, though, looking around, and listening to whatever music I happened to have on. He was especially fond of a Gaslight Anthem song called “Blue Jeans and White T-shirts.” Oh, his face would light up when he’d hear the opening chords of that song. We drive around the dirty old town, I flip through the stations and glance at the car’s clock. Four minutes, I think. This song comes on the station I happen to have on, and I think of him, think of Puffy, thinking of me and him and his sister driving around, singing along to whatever we heard. The song plays, I see you Eliza, Eliza I see…four birds in the window… I glance over at him. I want to ask him if he knows this song reminds me of us in the car, way back when. I want to ask him if likes the song. I want to ask him so many things, but we drive around the dirty old town, and the song plays, and I lose my nerve and I don’t ask him anything, and we don’t say a word, we just listen, or, well, maybe just I listen, we drive around and don’t say a word and I just try to hold on tight to how little of him, already, I have left. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/7/27/2181102/-Four-birds-in-the-window Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/