Chickadee

Todays the day. Today I take control of my life. I will unlock the deadbolt. Then unhook the chain. Next comes the small lock in the door knob, I will turn it to the horizontal position. My right hand will twist the knob counterclockwise and pull the door towards me, I will step into the hallway and walk to the elevator.

The clang of the delivery box opening and closing interrupted the visualization practice Luli's online therapist had given her last month. So far it had only succeeded in making her arm pits smell like canned chicken noodle soup. It had not gotten her past the first lock on the door, but once last week she'd gone so far as to touch the dead bolt.

Luli and her husband had both been working at UNC in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. She as a professor, and he as a researcher at Gillings School of Global Public Health. At a faculty party she'd over heard her husband's colleagues discussing the corona virus exposure incident in 2016, the infected mouse had bitten a technician on her ring finger, despite the lab being at biosafety Level 3. She'd merely had to wear a mask in public and have her temperature monitered, no quarrantining.

When Luli heard them talking so casually about this, her heart beat fast and loud in her ears and she felt pain in her chest. She was sure she was having a heart attack, only to feel the shame of being told by the ambulence team, in front of the room full of colleagues, that she was merely having an anxiety attack. She had gotten better with medications, but stopped going to parties. When the pandemic hit, a few years later, she worked from home giving online classes. Her husband had not. He died alone in a hospital, after a whispered I love you on the phone.

When the pandemic was officially over, she continued with grocery deliveries and UNC allowed her to remain solely giving online classes. She could not bring herself to leave the apartment.

She walked over to the solid metal 2x3 ft double doored container for deliveries, located inside the wall near her front door. The access from inside the apartment was locked with a dead bolt. Her therapist had suggested it be just like the one on the front door, so she could practice, and become less anxious for the time when she might have to. She would not open the delivery box door until her cctv showed the outside door of the box was closed and the courier had entered the elevator.

Her hands shook as she unlocked and opened the door. Two paper bags of groceries stood in the container. She sprayed a mist of sanitizer into the box. A bead of sweat rolled off her forehead and dropped on the metal floor next to the bags, it sounded to her like a fat raindrop. She closed her eyes and sat back in a squat to wipe her brow with her sleeve. She felt a subtle breeze on her face and smiled remembering summer on the farm in the Uwharrie foothills of North Carolina. She could almost smell the heaven scent of the first drops of rain meeting the earth at the start of a long awaited rain. She heard the familiar see dee see dee of a Chickadee, and shook her head, Now I'm hearing things as well as agoraphobic!

Luli removed the grocery bags and locked the delivery box, with a relieved sigh. It would be a week until the next grocery drop.

She put away the frozen, then perishables. She hummed as she worked and felt the therapy must be working as she felt lighter, more joyful. As she put the dry goods in the pantry a rapid high pitched, see dee see dee dee dee dee dee rang out and she was startled to see a frantic Carolina Chickadee skim the top of her sofa and smack into the closed window.

Luli gasped and ran to the fallen bird. It was stunned and panting with its beak open. It looked just like how Luli felt when she had to imagine opening her front door to the dangerous world out there. Before she could even think of her fears, she flung open the balcony door and gently scooped the bird in a kitchen towel and set it on the floor of the balcony, taking time to open the towel so the bird could fly free when it recovered, she prayed it would recover.

When she stood up and realized where she was, a place she had never dared to venture since covid, her heart raced and she felt dizzy and nauseous. She hurried inside.

Despite her distress she stood by the window so she could see the bird. She counted out several deep slow breaths, then focused her mind on the bird, Please let it be okay, let it fly free.

Luli's hands clapped like a joyful child as it zipped away, across the street to the park, to rest. Only then did the question arise, How did the bird get into her home?

Luli quickly checked the lock on the balcony door, followed by each window in her 3rd floor apartment. She retraced the moments to when she first heard the bird. She'd been getting the groceries from the delivery bin. It didn't make sense that the bird would've come in from the hall, and flown into the bin. She checked the cctv footage and didn't see anything. Anxiety pulsed through her veins, there must be a way in to her apartment, a hole somewhere. She made the rounds again, moving tables and chairs to thoroughly check the wall to the outside. She started to tremble, her breathing shallow and fast. She sat down, the sweat beaded on her upper lip and forehead. A drop plopped onto the low glass table in front of the couch. The drop of sweat shimmered in the light. Several more beads fell from the tip of her nose and forehead, then more. The drops spun in a whirlpool of white and gray, they swirled faster and faster spiraling up into the air transforming into grey and white Chickadees. With each bird formed, her anxiety and fear diminished until there were only birds. They let out the familiar signal of distress, see dee see dee dee dee dee dee dee. One Chickadee perched on a lamp shade, another on a blade of the ceiling fan, the others in a flurry of flight, knocked over a picture frame and rustled the papers at her desk. Luli sprang up to close the curtains to keep the birds safe from smacking into the glass in their frenzy to get out. She re-opened the balcony door and moved away to urge the birds in the direction of freedom. She flapped her arms and lovingly cried, "Shoo, shoo! Go on now!" One flew out the door, the others soon followed. Luli breathed a sigh or relief and without a thought, rushed out to the balcony wall to spot them in the park across the street. They were flittering between the branches of a Loblolly Pine and a Tulip Poplar.

She turned her face to the sun and closed her eyes. The warmth spread through her limbs. She was outside, she felt safe, her fears were alight on the limbs of poplars.