Bohemian Avenue #11

Mike led her into the basement of his friend's house to the recording studio there. All his work of writing, arranging the music, bringing in musicians, and laying all the music tracks was about to be completed. Denise had the perfect smoky alto voice to make his project the dream his mind had created.

He became very attentive that she would be as comfortable as possible during her time here. The bottle of water was cold from the refrigerator on the music stand. He took her coat and showed her where she could refresh herself.

Mike's friend Dan fit the headphones to her head and ran a sound check on her microphone. After some adjustment of its placement, it was time to get down to the actual laying of the vocal tracks.

It was Dan's studio, so he sat behind the big board and acted as engineer, but Mike was the producer and had the last word on what each recording contained. He sat next to Dan and observed and lent what advise he could keep the musicians and Dan in line with what his project was meant to be.

The recording was going as planned. Denise was in fine voice and understood all Mike's instructions, behaving as a good actress taking direction. Her voice was having the desired effect.

Music was something deeply meaningful to Mike. It penetrated to his spirit and engulfed, inspired, and lifted him. Each instrument was vital to the feeling of the whole piece of music, and the voice of the singer touched him in ways that convinced him of a deep connection between the two of them.

There seemed to be such a connection now. Watching her added another facet to the process. Her face was framed by a pageboy haircut that enriched the chestnut color of her hair and eyebrows. Her blue eyes seemed to envision all that she sang about as her voice caressed the listener's ears.

When all the vocals were laid and outside the afternoon had turned to evening, Denise gathered her things to leave. Mike felt he had experienced an intimate embrace and wished he could make it last.

“Thank you so much for all your hard work. I am very pleased with what we have accomplished,” said Mike handing her an envelope with her fee inside.

“Thank you. This will come in handy when I leave for New York tomorrow,” smiled Denise.

Mike's heartbeat thudded harder for a moment, but kept his face placid. “It's a shame you won't be able to work with us anymore, but I wish you all the best.” He held out his hand for her shake and showed her to the door.

As he watched her through the window, he couldn't believe he felt so let down with a strong sense of loss. He thought he could still smell a wisp of her perfume. A sense of mourning seemed to begin settling upon him as he returned to the soundboard.

“Hit the playback from the beginning, Dan, please?”

The music was rich and velvet in its texture carrying Denise's voice straight to Mike's heart. It was all there! The moments Mike had desired to last forever.

And for Mike they will.

Bohemian Avenue #10

Three strips of bright green plastic had blown into my yard while I was taking in the sunshine and the cool breeze of a spring morning. I had been contemplating what yard work needed to be completed now that the snow was gone when the color caught my eye. I picked them up before sitting on my front step to finish my tea.

I have a bird feeder hanging from a tree that manages to hold up under the weight of chipmunks and squirrels who love the seed as much as the little sparrow pecking at some spilled seed in the grass at that moment. I noticed the sparrow fly off with a piece of twine, which reminded me of the plastic I had picked up.

I looked at the three pieces of shiny green. They had been looped as if they had held a rolled newspaper or magazine. I untied them and braided them together. It made me think of the bracelets the kids like to wear. I draped it over my knee and watched the little sparrow as she made off with various scraps of things from my yard.

She seemed a cute little thing, and I decided that I liked her especially since she seemed to be helping me with my yard work. I watched her as she gradually drew closer to me.

I glanced at my knee and saw that my braid had fallen to the pavement by the toe of my shoe. As I reached to pick it up, another small tanned hand was reaching for it as well. I looked up into a pair of big brown eyes in the head of a brown-haired girl of about twelve years old.

I drew back, and the child kept glancing between my face and the green braid at my feet.

“You can have it,” I said gently.

With what happened next, I was sure I had to be dreaming. The green strands were swept up in a flurry of feathers and were gone. The girl was nowhere to be seen either.

All morning, I kept thinking about what had happened. Was the girl also a sparrow? As Tim Allen said in “The Santa Claus”: Tomorrow, I'm getting a CAT scan! I really didn't want to be crazy. To keep my mind from thinking further along this line, I decided to continue with my yard work.

As I was raking the backyard, I remembered someone from work who claimed he had a girlfriend that was also a crow or something.

It turned out he lived only three blocks from me. Since it was now after ten o'clock, I thought I'd go pay him a visit, and maybe ask about this crow for a girlfriend of his.

When I was standing in front of his house, I realized I couldn't remember his name. As brazen as you please, I looked at the mail in his mailbox. Thomas Mayfield was the name. 0k, I remembered we called him Tom at work.

I rang the doorbell and rapped three times on the door for good measure. It was a habit from being a paperboy as a kid. You had to be persistent in your collections or you would have to eat a hundred newspapers. No one on my route could claim they didn't hear me because the doorbell didn't work.

Tom came to the door in a t-shirt and athletic shorts. His hair was sticking up on one side, and I could actually see the sleep in his eyes. At least he recognized me right away.

“Tom, can I talk to you about something?”

With only a raised eyebrow and a more alert attitude, he asked me into his kitchen and offered me fresh coffee.

When I broached the subject of his having a crow for a girlfriend, he put his coffee cup down and looked at me. “She not a crow. She’s a red winged black bird. Crows are more unpredictable.”

“I think I believe you, now.” I said.

“What? About crows? You’ve seen a bird person?”

“I think so.” I replied. I proceeded to tell him what had happened to me that morning.

“So, what do you want from me?”

“You have a relationship with one of them. I thought you could tell me how to befriend my sparrow girl.”

“Whoa. First of all, they are very secretive and will disappear forever at the slightest chance of betrayal or unwanted discovery. My own friend would fly off and not speak to me for days if I even hinted she was anything but a normal girl. This secret is something magical and we are graciously trusted to keep that secret or never share in it again.”

“Your blackbird, or all bird people? How do I gain her trust?” Am I encroaching into Tom’s private fantasy world? Or am I really being drawn into some secret magical reality? Have I already lost it?

“Look,” said Tom, “if she’s really trusting her secret to you, you’ll see her again. Just let her come to you in her own time.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s all I can tell you. All I have said is really a theory based on my own experiences. I don’t know the sparrow people, and I couldn’t even ask Jenny about her own kind. Relax. If she appears again, enjoy what friendship you can make and don’t press for more than she’s willing to give.”

Walking home, I thought about all I knew about sparrows. It wasn’t much, but I figured if I saw a bit of bright green in a nest somewhere, I’d at least know where she lives.