In a giant Chicago warehouse that smelled of cardboard and dust, a small, bright green parakeet fluttered against the skylight. No one knew how he’d gotten in. Maybe he escaped from a cage left open in an apartment nearby. Maybe someone set him free, thinking the city air was the same as the wild.
For weeks, workers heard the high, lonely chirping echoing from the rafters. “We’ve got a little visitor,” one joked. Someone tossed breadcrumbs onto a high beam. The parakeet pecked at them, tilting his head, confused by this strange new flock that walked on two feet and never left the ground.
When winter came, the warehouse grew colder. The skylight frosted over, turning from blue to opaque white. The bird’s chirps grew thinner, more frantic. His wings beat the air with less strength. Every now and then he’d land on a stack of boxes, watching workers move below like slow giants.
One young employee, Theo, took pity. He brought in a small birdcage from home and set it near where the parakeet liked to perch. Inside, he placed seeds, fresh water, a tiny mirror. “C’mon, little dude,” he whispered, “I’ll get you to a rescue, I promise.”
Days passed and the parakeet watched the cage warily. Freedom, even cold and hungry, still felt safer than those thin bars.
A city bird rescue replied to Theo’s email after a week. “We’re at capacity but can take one more if you can catch him,” they wrote. Theo printed the message and taped it to his locker like a promise.
One evening, the warehouse was nearly empty when the bird, shivering, swooped lower than usual and landed on the cage. He peered at the seeds inside, then the mirror, where another tiny, desperate bird stared back.
He stepped inside, drawn by hunger and the illusion of company.
Theo, working late, saw it happen. He moved slowly, heart pounding, and closed the door. The parakeet panicked, fluttering wildly, banging his small body against the bars. Theo whispered, “It’s okay. I’m helping you. I’m helping.”
He took the cage home overnight, promising himself he’d bring the bird to the rescue first thing in the morning. He named him “Skylight.”
That night, Theo stayed up later than he meant to, scrolling his phone, the cage quiet beside his desk. At some point, he dozed off in his chair.
When the alarm blared at dawn, he jolted awake and turned to the cage, eager and guilty. Skylight lay still at the bottom, one wing slightly outstretched, as if reaching for a sky that wasn’t there.
The vet told Theo later that the bird’s tiny body had likely been too weakened by the cold and lack of proper food for too long. “He probably felt safe for the first time in a while,” she said gently. “He didn’t die up there alone.”
Theo buried Skylight in a small box planter on his windowsill. The warehouse went back to the usual hum. Nobody mentioned the bird again.
Sometimes, on breaks, Theo would glance up at the skylight and imagine a flash of green against the gray, though it was only ever his memory, circling alone.