Hallucination

After being home from work for a bit last night, I decided to venture to the bathroom to, well, you know. When I opened the door, I heard something scurry around frantically.

I promptly and instinctively closed the door, let my heart rate slow down, and began my vigil by the door, waiting for whatever it was to happen again.

"It's a bird," I said to myself, knowing full well that it was a bird, because I've heard that frenetic flapping before. When Sister and I were in San Francisco a few years ago, we were staying in a hotel that didn't have screens on the window. We thought this a bit odd, being from MA where windows have screens.

(Aside: I have since learned that most places don't have screens, which leads to all manner of mayhem including birds flying into hotel rooms and babies falling out of fourth story apartments. Then again, a baby falling may not be prevented by a screen if the baby is determined to escape. Bars, however, would prevent babies from getting out but not necessarily birds from getting in. I guess I am a little neurotic when it comes to screens. When we moved to Brooklyn I said to Roommate "Dude, why aren't there screens?" We were distressed for a bit - the bugs! - but then learned that most places do not have screens, and we were apparently just spoiled in MA. Digression = over.)

Anyway, Sister and I were awoken bright and early one day by the hysterical flapping of wings in our room. We freaked out (only after we were awake enough to realize that there was a bird having a meltdown in our room) and ran into the bathroom where we took shelter and regrouped. After we settled down, we opened the door to see the bird perched atop the TV. We tried a couple uninspired moves including trying to lure the bird out with bread - we realized this was the worst idea ever when a bunch of other birds from the outside almost flew in. Thinking back on this, it is bizarre to me that we even had bread in the hotel room. We tried throwing a shoe at it. We tried screaming like lunatics because that's the best thing to do to calm down a frightened bird. We eventually concluded that there was no way for us to get it out - it wasn't going to the window of its own volition, and since we were in a hotel room we were devoid of any bird-chasing devices like brooms and mops. We called the front desk and explained "Um, there's a bird in our room." They laughed, and finally sent a guy up with a pair of gloves, a pail, and a broom.

So I knew the sound all too well. I listened outside the bathroom door last night, and nothing was happening. Nothing! I stood there for a few minutes. I tried to lure it out. I turned the lights on and off. I banged on the door. I yelled. I tried to scare it again, scare it into revealing itself. I opened the door a crack and tried to look in the mirror to see if I could see its reflection. Nothing. I even walked in, attempting to reenact what caused it to panic in the first place. Nothing.

I decided to wait for D to come home, as D loves gender roles and would love nothing more than to save the day and as I didn't know how on earth to get a bird out of an apartment with no windows readily available.

Not that there was a bird. In the hour between hearing the noise and D's coming home from the gym, when the bird didn't make another sound, I managed to convince myself that my having a psychotic break was far more likely than there being a now silent bird in my apartment.

I kept weighing the options - which would be worse? An auditory hallucination or there being a bird in my apartment and my being unable to get it out? Seriously. This was going to be a hard job. The bird was in the bathroom and there were no windows nearby. We'd have to get the bird to fly to either end of the apartment, which wouldn't be easy, and would certainly be murder on the furniture. When Sister and I tried to get the bird out of the hotel room, it was freaking out and crapped everywhere. I didn't want a bird shitting on the couch, the nice sheets, no way.

If there turned out not to be a bird, would I go to a therapist and admit that I'd been hearing things? Probably not. I'd never admit it.

I started thinking "What if I'm seriously losing it?"

At one point during the vigil, I swore that I heard chirping. Seriously, I swore.

But no! How would a bird get into a Manhattan apartment? There was no way. It's impossible. But then again, D had taken out the air conditioners from the windows the night before (and yes, we are concerned that it might reach 70 degrees again but whatever, we'll deal) so it is possible that a bird sneaked in, but wouldn't we have noticed? And how would it have gone undetected all night?

No. There was no bird, and I was losing my mind, and I spent most of that hour trying to think if I'd experienced any other insanity in the recent months, and trying to think of what I would say to D. I wanted him to inspect the bathroom just to make sure that there was no bird. But I didn't want to say "There's a bird in the bathroom," because if there wasn't, that would really scare him. And me.

And then I thought "Wait - but what if there is a bird and it somehow flies out of the bathroom and we go to look and its not there but is somewhere else in the apartment? My diagnosis will be insanity but I won't actually be insane!"

I thought about not saying anything, and letting D discover (or not discover) it for himself. But on the off-chance that there was a bird, I didn't want him to have a heart attack when he went to take a shower and a bird flew into his face. But if I didn't say anything, I wouldn't incriminate myself as an insane person.

When D walked in, he gave me a kiss and joked "What a long day at the office!" I immediately said "Honey, I think there's something in the bathroom."

I hadn't even considered this option. It just came out of my mouth. Brilliant. And by then I had convinced myself that it was entirely possible that D hadn't shut the flue the night before, although that's not like him, but its possible that a bird could fly in through the chimney! Totally possible.

"What?"

"I don't know, but I heard something."

"Like what?"

"I don't know - I could have been hallucinating or it could have been from the neighbor's apartment, but it sounded like... well, either some very large gruesome insect or a mouse or something. Something big." I said nothing about the bird, because seriously, there can't be a bird in a Manhattan apartment. There just can't be.

I made D nervous. I didn't mean to. But I have to admit that I like it when he's nervous and insecure, because I see it so rarely. I feel like we have something in common when he gets that way. We looked in the bathroom together, with the door only slightly ajar. D also performed the look-in-the-mirror maneuver. Nothing.

"What's that?" I said, pointing to a small black spot on the toilet. Normally I wouldn't be alarmed, but I'd just cleaned the bathroom the night before and was expecting spotlessness.

"It looks like bird crap," said D.

"AH HA!" I said. "It IS a bird."

"What?"

"I think there's a bird."

"But there's no bird." There was no bird. "Maybe in the towels?" I suggested. No bird.

"Look in the shower..." I said and as he opened the shower curtain we both had minor heart attacks when the freaking bird flew up and spazzed out.

Yes, folks, a bird.

And how did it get in?

Through the flue, in the fireplace, which had not been closed the night before.

We slammed the door shut, regrouped, and came up with a plan. D said "How did it get in?" "THE FLUE!" I said, having had more time to think about it than he did.

Upon further inspection, there was bird crap all over the apartment, which was doubly unfortunate given that D had literally scrubbed the floor on his hands and knees the night before. Neither of us had noticed it previously because our floor is speckled with dried paint from whoever painted our apartment before we moved in. Camouflage. We had to inspect each dot carefully to determine what was what. There was some on the TV, but it looked like the bedroom and kitchen were spared.

D wanted to coax it out one of our windows, but I didn't want to because I was afraid of more damage. I didn't know what to do. D suggested coaxing it out into the hall, which was a good idea but what if it then flew into someone else's apartment? I preferred his original idea, but then D decided to let it out the front door and try to get it up to the roof. Brilliant!

Before I knew what was happening, D had the bird out in the hall and was chasing it up the stairs onto the roof.

My hero.

And my non-hallucinating brain.

Bird in the apartment. Wtf?