Untouchable

Can you help us? they ask, leaning out of the window.

I say yes. Of course I say yes. I am the new girl that day, eager to be of use.

It's trapped, they say.

Inside the room something flickers by, not quite in a straight line. It meets the glass of a window pane and skitters down to land on the windowsill.

I see then that it's a bird, a tiny bird. A green-tit, breast beating frantically, a little puddle of droppings under it on the sill. I don't know what to do, but I have to do something, so I move slowly towards it. The bird contracts into itself with fear.

I think it might die if we get too close, one of the others say, just as I come to the same conclusion.

It is three feet away from me. If I reached out I could touch it. But I never, ever can.

We stand like that for a few moments, me, the man and woman from the offices on either side of me, and the bird.

I cross the to the far side of the room and open all the windows there. Then I walk slowly back, my arms open wide. The bird takes flight again - over, back - and finally out one of the open windows. We watch as it vanishes into the overhang of the forest.

In the now-emptier room, we share a triumphant smile.

They leave, but I find myself lingering by the window, wondering what the tickle of feathers on my palm would feel like. I am reminded of the butterflies we used to stalk every summer, wanting so badly to hold something so beautiful, only to open our hands on the ruined creatures they became at our touch. Irridescent dust staining our hearts black. Some things are never meant to be caught.