Then came the bang. I jumped. Granola dust went everywhere.

“What was that?” yelled Touch from upstairs.

I scurried out the side door to investigate. The bird was there, lying on the deck. It was pale brown, no bigger than my palm. I didn’t know what kind of bird it was. I didn’t want to know what kind of bird it was. I had yogurt and granola in my mouth, but I didn’t want to swallow it. The taste had gone off. Was it stunned, or dead? I couldn’t tell.

I went back inside.

Touchstone had emerged from upstairs, rumpled, pillow marks on his cheeks. He’d been out late with Audrey the night before. Clowning, it turned out, was a surprise aphrodisiac.

“A bird flew into the window,” I said.

“Oh, shit,” said Touchstone. “Is it alive?”

“I can’t tell,” I said.

We looked at each other, unsure of where to go.

“I’m getting Ros,” I said.

“Like they’ll know what to do,” said Touch.

Ros was still sleeping, sprawled on the bed chaotically, as if they’d fallen from a great height. Our room didn’t get a lot of light—even on the brightest afternoons, it stayed dim and cave-like. In the half-light, I looked at them.

The confusing thing about being in love with Ros was that it wasn’t always visible—sometimes it faded when I was preoccupied, like with the busyness of work. Loving them was like the moon—brighter and more obvious at times, and then sometimes you had to hunt for it, search for the black within the black. Sometimes it was so faint I convinced myself that it would be fine if nothing happened between me and Ros. That it would be all right if we stayed friends. Not all right: better.

But then sometimes, like now, I thought they were the most beautiful person I’d ever seen.

They opened one eye.

“What are you doing?”

“There’s a bird,” I said. “It flew into the window.”

“Oh no,” they said. “Really?”

“Come see,” I said.

We gathered around the bird. His little beak was open. I’d never seen a bird tongue before. It was pink, just like a person’s.

“Oh yeah,” said Ros. “He’s toast.”

“Toast!” I said. “I thought he was just stunned, maybe.”

“No way, man,” Ros said. “He’s dead. Or good as.”

“Rest in peace, little sparrow,” said Touchstone.

“May bird heaven be full of worms.”

“Endless cars to shit on.”

“How are you both joking?” I said. I could feel my voice getting high and whiny, like I was about to cry. “I know it’s just a bird, but it was alive, and now—”

People forget that Capricorns can be deep feelers, my mother said often.

I missed my mom. She would have known what to do in this situation.

There was that familiar tug of homesickness.