Night Shifts to Day

Night Shifts to Day

I slept for a few hours after a late night wander through the house. I would have slept longer if not for the child at my elbow asking for breakfast.
I waved her away, promising to climb out of the warm covers, and then went back to sleep.
I woke again to the flutter, flutter, peck sound of a bird trapped in the chimney behind the headboard of the bed.
It's an old house we occupy, and it used to be warmed by coal. Many rooms have these tiny coal chimneys along the wall, and the basement has a chute for delivering the dark lumps of fuel.
The chimney cap related to our bedroom has some kind of flaw - we keep forgetting to investigate the problem and fix it - which allows small birds to be swept down in high winds.
So we wake up to a flutter, flutter, peck of a desperate animal used to freedom but caught in a trap.
Each time, we clean off the headboard and heave it out of place with mercy and pity mingling in our eyes. We open the windows on these windy days, lock out the cats, and take off the little cover behind the bed.
Each time, the bird finds true sky so fast that we have trouble identifying the species and I realize that locking out the cats is ridiculous - they wouldn't have time to make a catch.