The parrots first arrived in August. The boyfriend says it was a sign. She says all they did was put seed outside — like they had done all those times before — and the birds would’ve eaten berries from the juniper bushes anyway, and their lives were only marginally improved because now they’d have to clean up after the mess.
So, they could both scrub rainbow poop from the balcony.
Except, not her, not really. She’s not the one who put out the seed in the first place. And shouldn’t they think twice about feeding twenty-some wild parrots at a time anyway? That’s a lot of seed. Besides, the neighbors won’t be happy, especially the ones directly downstairs. We might as well sit around and wait to be evicted, she says.
Besides, these birds are meant to be wild. They’re used to fending for themselves. This isn’t our moment to become ornithologists, she thinks. I don’t want to be bit by a wild bird and catch some weird exotic animal disease.
The parrots returned the next morning and every morning after at 8am sharp. By then he was already off to work.
They’d waddle along the edge of the balcony and yell at her until she was awake, then watch her trudge from the bedroom to the kitchen where she’d fetch a plastic measuring cup and loosely scoop slightly less than a reasonable amount of seed to feed two dozen hungry cherry-headed conures.
The birds returned at noon to find her reading US Weekly on the couch in her pajamas. They yakked again — loudly — until she returned to the plastic food dish to replenish the supply. They returned for a final feeding again at four and chattered away amongst themselves as they ate; all flock business, she presumed.
After each feeding, when they returned to the sky with their wings flapping maniacally and all out of sync, she’d go outside with a broom and sweep the empty husks into a pile. She’d vacuum the debris then adjust the cheap wooden boards she’d put down to catch (most of) the shit.
One hot September afternoon she reads online that wild conures eat tropical fruit. So, she puts out slivered spears of carrot and small chunks of aging apples. It’s not like I’m going to write the parrots guide to fine cuisine, she thinks. She makes sure to cut them up small. The last thing I want is for a parrot to choke and die on my watch.
The birds don’t hesitate and grab the fruit, grasping it with tiny amphibian claws, two toes pointing forward and two back. It looks kind of like a fist, she thinks, as they hold the food close and take sideways bites; little nibbles with strange black tongues extended.
A week after that, she washes her face and put on makeup; brushes her hair, pulls it back into a low ponytail. She pulls a blazer from a pile of wrinkled clothes and puts it on as she walks across the creaky floor to her makeshift desk and signs into the video call. “So professional,” she thinks, impressed by her own efforts.
“My kids are in the background, sorry for the noise. It’s been a busy holiday weekend, you know how it is.” The interviewer says in a tone halfway apologetic at best. There was a pause, an extra beat too long.
The woman considered sharing a fun fact about her thirty-some wild parrots, but thought it better to stay quiet. And right at that moment one of the teenage birds chose to a little jig on the railing just over her shoulder. She smiled, realizing that maybe, her struggle wasn’t so different after all.