The window-sill visitor

He sits by the window, waiting, watching for the little bird to make its way past the towering buildings to his window-sill. There is a strange relationship between them. He whistles Mozart's Violin Concerto No.4 in D Major every morning at 9:30, and the little bird comes to peck at the pieces of bread, sipping at the small plastic bowl of water that he keeps at the window-sill. This routine has been going on for 20 days, and he sits as usual, behind the half-drawn curtain...waiting for his friend to come visit him. It takes all his strength to shoo away the pigeons and crows, so that his friend can have a pleasant breakfast....unhurried and uninterrupted. Today though, he cannot whistle the tune, his lungs have been eaten away by cancer...and even a whisper sends him into paroxysms of pain. But the bird doesn't seem to mind the lack of music, it still feeds on the bread, and seems to thank him with a few chirps and a flap of its wings from time to time. Soon, he knows he won't be allowed to come to the window, the needles intravenously confining him to the hospital bed. With a sigh, he drops his head, and at that instant the little bird looks at him questioningly...perhaps sensing his sadness. In a few months, the doctor said, he would be on life-support...meaning his worn-out lungs would be no longer capable of even the strain of breathing. The thoughts running around in his head cause even him to laugh out loud...that deep, booming laugh which used to echo around the house, today comes out more like a wheezing cough...instantly frightening away the little bird. He isn't thinking about his impending death, nor about the wife and children he's leaving behind, he's wondering who will feed the little bird once he's gone.....