Bird in My Kettle

It was a cold Saturday morning. I was sitting on the floor and trying to read, but I couldn't focus. It was just too cold. So I dug through my laundry and layered myself in every piece of clothing I could find. And I mean everything – I wore about five shirts, three pairs of jeans, and I have no idea how many pairs of socks. Everything! Then, to top it off, I wrapped myself up in my gross old LA Dodgers blanket. It was a cozy scenario, albeit somewhat smelly, but I wasn't satisfied. Because I was still kind of chilly, you know?

"But what else can I do?" I said to myself.

I thought about this for a minute, then a hot idea shot through my head.

"Coffee!" I said, "I need some coffee. That'll warm me up."

I sprinted towards the kitchen. Thing is, I was wearing so many pairs of socks that I couldn't stop myself. I just glided across the floor, and I crashed into a wall. Which was actually kind of fun.

After crashing into a wall and skating around on my socks for a minute, I headed for the kitchen and got to business. I grabbed the kettle and started filling it up with water. I make my coffee in a French press, so I have to boil up some water first, you know? But as I was filling the kettle with water, I heard this sound, like chirping, coming from inside the tea kettle!

"Turn off the water!" it said. "Cut it out! Are you trying to drown me?"

Well, that startled the shit out of me. I mean, I nearly dropped the kettle on the floor I was so surprised. But I didn't, which was a good thing because it turns out there was a little bird inside.

So I poured the water from the kettle and peered inside. A soggy little bird glared at me, flapping its wings and what not. I cracked a smile.

"Hey," I said to the bird, "what are you doing inside my kettle?"

"What's it to you?" chirped the bird. The kettle's snout amplified the bird's chirps like a megaphone and lent them a loud, grimy, distorted quality that I kind of dug.

"Well, you know, it's strange. I mean – you're sort of inside my kettle."

"Oh, this is your kettle is it?"

"Uh… yeah."

"What, did you buy it or something?"

"Yeah, at a hardware store on Mass Ave.."

"Oh. Well, you must be awfully proud of yourself."

I thought about that for a minute. Then I picked up the kettle and tried to shake the bird out if it. The bird bounced around inside, chirping like a lunatic, but it wouldn't come out. After that, I tried using an ice cream scooper to coax it out, but that didn't work either.

"Cut it out!" yelped the bird.

"No way," I said. "I want coffee. Get the fuck outta my kettle."

"Listen," said the bird, "just let me stay here for a little while. Please? It's cold outside!"

I sighed.

"Ugh," I said. "Fuck it, stay in the kettle."

And the bird chirped cheerfully, "Thanks!"

I mean, I was torn. I had a bird inside my kettle. That sucks. I wanted coffee, you know? Because it's cold outside. On the other hand, I felt bad for the bird. Because it's cold outside.

Anyway, I flopped on the couch and tried to read. But I couldn't. I couldn't get the bird out of my head. I thought about the kettle. And the cold. After a little while, I started to doze off. Then the bird began squawking and chirping.

At first, I ignored it. I buried my head under a couch cushion and tried to fall asleep. But the bird was so fucking loud, particularly due to the kettle's amplification of its voice, that I got fed up and stormed into the kitchen.

"What?" I said. "What is it? Do you want something?"

"Hey," chirped the bird. "Uh… how's it going?"

"It's going fine."

"Cool. Um. So what are you doing for lunch?"

"Lunch? I don't know. I'll probably eat a sandwich or something."

"When do you think you're gonna eat?"

"I don't know. Whenever I feel like it."

"Well, I'm starved."

"What do I care?" I said. "If you're hungry, get out of my kettle and go eat something. Problem solved."

"Can you grab me some chips?"

"Are you serious?"

"Come on, don't be a dick. Just grab me some chips. Please?"

I felt bad, so I emptied some potato chips into the kettle. That shut the bird up. For a while. But it was only the beginning. Next it was, "When are you going to the grocery store?" and "Can you grab me some cheese and cantaloupe and sunflower seeds?" The food was inexpensive, and I didn't mind buying it. So I did.

Next thing I knew, it was, "I'm bored," and "I'm tired," and "Can you turn on the radio?"

Before I knew what had happened, I was a slave to the bird in my kettle.

Turn on the TV. Flip through the channels. I'm cold – do you have a heater? Do you have any blankets? I'm bored. The battery on my cell phone is dying, can I use yours? This fork is dirty. What's that smell? You're out of toilet paper.

The bird drove me nuts. At first. As the days passed, however, I grew accustomed to the routine. In fact, I actually began to enjoy serving the bird. Crazy? Very. But it was a cozy scenario. The bird was in my kettle, and it needed someone to do stuff for it. Why not me?

My buddies thought I was nuts.

"Yo," they said, "Lynch, we're going to the bar. You should hang out."

"I can't."

"Dude. Are you still hanging out with the bird in your tea kettle?"

"Maybe…."

"Man – what the fuck? You're a fucking loser."

And so it went. A few weeks went by. My buddies stopped calling, and I waited on the bird in my kettle.

Then, one day, I walked into the living room, and the bird was sitting on my couch, eating an egg salad sandwich. I was shocked. Horrified. The bird had left my kettle.

"What are you doing?" I said.

"Oh," chirped the bird with a mouthful of sandwich. "What's up?"

Very casually, the bird cracked a can of soda open, drank a few sips, and then poured the rest into a glass. It offered me some and I shook my head no. Then, for a few seconds, I watched the soda fizz. It was a welcome distraction.

"Why aren't you in the kettle?" I sighed.

"I got sick of the kettle."

I didn't know what to say. Without the kettle, everything was different. Even though this was the bird that had been in my kettle, the bird and the kettle were inseparable, and the bird without the kettle was a stranger to me. Even its chirp was different – the distorted, tea kettle, megaphone chirp had been replaced with a standard bird chirp.

"What do you mean?" I said. "I thought you liked it in there."

"I did, but I don't belong in there. I'd rather be out here. Besides, now we can hang out. And I can do stuff for myself, you know? And you can drink coffee again."

"Oh."

"Yeah. Hey, why don't you let me make you dinner? I owe you for letting me hang out in your tea kettle for so long."

I nearly threw up. "Uh, you don't have to do that."

"Oh, come on. It's no problem."

"Okay. I guess."

So the bird made dinner. I choked it down and hated every second of it.

From that point on, the bird turned on the TV by itself. It bought its own food. It didn't need me anymore. Quite the opposite – it actually began doing stuff for me. And I resented it. I grumbled, "Who the fuck is this bird and why is it in my apartment?"

I called my friends and said, "Dude, we should hang out."

They said, "What happened to the bird in your kettle?"

And I said, "Fuck the bird."

I didn't enjoy the bird's company. The bird undoubtedly sensed this. It said, "You should make some coffee." But I refused. I didn't use the empty tea kettle. Not once. In fact, it disgusted me. I didn't even want to look at it. The empty tea kettle stirred up a sense of loss in me that I found embarrassing.

I began buying coffee from a place around the corner. I bought the largest cup of coffee they sold, and spent the entire afternoon quietly enjoying it. I wanted the bird to know: "No, I will not use your kettle. It disgusts me."

But that wasn't enough. I couldn't even tolerate living with the empty kettle. I wanted to throw it in the garbage, but I didn't want the bird to see me doing it.

So one day, while the bird was out shopping for groceries, I ran across the street and tossed my kettle into a dumpster. I covered it up with stained newspapers and a moldy piece of carpet.

When the bird returned, it immediately noticed that the kettle was missing and asked me where I put it.

"Why?" I said. "Why do you care? You don't even drink coffee."

"What did you do with it?"

So I fessed up, and I said I threw it away and not to bother looking for it because the garbage truck already carried it off and it's probably crushed, buried in a pile, or housing a family of rats somewhere.

The bird left. 20 minutes later, it came back with a brand new kettle, right? And it crawled inside. I said, "I can't believe you would even consider doing a thing like that." Then I left.

When I came home, the bird was gone.

A few days later, I was cold again. So I wrapped myself up in all my laundry and blankets and everything I could find, but I was still cold. I thought about how nice some coffee would be. But I had no coffee and no kettle. Then I thought about the bird and I began to feel lonely, but even then I just sighed and I said, "It's okay. It's okay. Better to simply be cold. Better to simply be lonely."

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