A Post-Church Sunday Afternoon

Jane squeaked opened the window sill, its wooden frame faded olive green with cracks in the crusted paint from 50 years of second story suburbia. It was a soft July sunset, a blood orange glow filtering through the swaying trees, creating intricate patterns of shadows across the red brick house. It was one of those quiet days that always follows a teriffic storm, and Jane hadn't left her childhood home for four and a half days. To her mother's ever questioning friends she was deathly sick with something unavoidable(but not shameful).

A bluejay cautiously hopped away from the window as a bundle of frizzled auburn hair emerged from the bedroom. Dark green eyes encircled by round bronze glasses fixed on the nest, and the bird dropped a damp stick on the ledge before fluttering away.

Jane whistled at it. Her imitation was uncanny, she thought.