AT WILL

By Ben Greenman

from forthcoming collection, as yet untitled

Birdie has more than one reason for the change of nickname she is requesting. It not only connotes flightiness and carries the effect of diminishment, but it reminds her specifically of Whiskers, a parakeet she had when she was young, which she loved for its blue breast and white cap, which was named by her father in high spirits on the drive home from the pet store and which brought her great joy until its beak began to overgrow—malnutrition, most likely, her mother said, or possibly some type of mite—and it could no longer eat and died. “Perished,” her father said, because, he also said, he thought the word “died” was too flat and as such unworthy of such a majestic creature as Whiskers, who could leave the earth at will, and who had now done exactly that. Her father perished a year later by a hand she refused to think of as his own. The triple case for rechristening is irresistible.