Singular

Since we have to be quiet while Katie’s being interviewed, our whispered conversation eventually fizzles out, and I go back to scrolling through memes on my computer while our friend and his baby stare out the kitchen window at the low descending rain as it settles in over the backyards and gardens of the buildings behind ours.

After the interview, the baby is put down for a nap, and our friend sets up the lights to take pictures of Katie’s studio. Bored with memes, I stand up, stretch a little, and go stare out the window myself for a while, when what should appear but a woodpecker, darting from branch to branch with sharp, angular jumps, and a blue jay, who leaps arrogantly ever higher to the top of the same tree, periodically pausing to shout his claim on everything in earshot of his cry.

I wonder if our friend and his baby saw the birds, if they marveled at the different ways they moved, if the baby might someday remember, or if I was the only person in the world who saw.