There is an Intruder in my house.
He creeps down the flue, nearly falling half the way. We know he's there, but we ignore him until the last possible minute. He makes a racket, thudding against metal walls, disturbing us at our work, at our sleep. We learned to ignore him, not to jump anymore at a swishing, fluttering bang in the basement.
Of course, he always comes out. He descends into the laundry room, frantically racing into the side of the dryer, into the blinds, into the concrete walls. He rushes into the unfinished bathroom, smashing his head against a beam. He has no direction, no roadmap to the place he seems to want to go, so desperately.
My brother wearily rolls his eyes and picks up the fishing net, gently knocking the Intruder into the stairwell, prodding him upstairs. I follow, wondering how God could make a creature so simple and idiotic. I pad up the stairs in my yellow pajamas, to find the Intruder beating against the window, frantically calling to his friends outside to save him. I whistle, foolishly, Snow-White fashion, to calm him a bit, perhaps... I can see his heart beat against his chest.
My brother captures him neatly in the net and frees him at the back door. He flies and flits into the sky, stroking his way into the air.
That was the third time he came.
Four times is just too ridiculous for the same bird to fall into our house.
It happened, though, today. I think he tried to clip my head off when I came home from work.