Dr. Suvajeet Duttagupta
THE INTERNAL CLOCK in my head chimed. It was time.
The rhythm of the house is usually absolute. First, the distant hum of the heater kicks on. Then, the creak of the floorboards down the hall. Finally, the heavy curtain that blocks out the world is pulled back, flooding my small room with morning light.
But today, the heater hummed, and the silence followed.
I gently stirred. It was pitch black in here. I waited. Patty is never late. She knows I don’t like to wait. I get restless.
Maybe I’m wrong, I thought. I tilted my head, listening to the stillness, Maybe the sun isn’t up yet.
I decided to be good. I decided to stay put. If I made a fuss now, started yelling, Patty would just say, “Hush, sweet boy, it’s not time.”
So I waited for her, there in the dark.
My mind drifted to last night. The memory was warm. Patty had leaned in close, her face distinct even in the dim evening light. Her voice was that soft, scratchy sound I loved to listen to.
“Sally is coming tomorrow,” she had said, clucking her tongue the way she does when she’s happy. “You be a good boy for Sally.”
I liked Sally. Sally was loud and smelled like flowers. When she came, she always brought things. Sometimes it was a hard, crunchy snack that took me a long time to break open.
Sometimes it was a new puzzle that I could solve with her.
We played other games, too. She would say a word, and I would learn it, rolling it around in my mouth until it sounded exactly like her. She would clap her hands and laugh. I liked making them laugh.
I gently stretched and just then my stomach gave a little rumble.
Where was she?
Hours must have passed. The air inside was getting stale. The heat of the day was seeping through the heavy curtain. I was thirsty. My patience was fraying, snapping like a dry twig. I opened my mouth to let out a scream — a sharp, piercing demand for attention — but then I stopped.
A sound.
The front door. Not the rhythmic click-clack of Patty’s shoes. These footsteps were heavy, frantic. Then, a noise I didn’t like. A high, heaving sound. Like the wind caught in a chimney.
Sobbing.
“Patty?” I tried to call out, but the air felt heavy.
The footsteps rushed into the room. Hands grabbed the fabric covering my world and ripped it back.
The light was blinding. I blinked rapidly, my pupils contracting and expanding. It wasn’t Patty. It was Sally. But she didn’t look like the Sally who brought gifts. Her face was red and wet. She was shaking.
She look at me through the vertical bars, her hands gripping the metal until her knuckles were white.
“Oh, Einstein,” she wept, her voice broken and jagged. “Oh, my poor baby.”
I cocked my head to the left. I didn’t understand. I stepped sideways on the perch, waiting for her to open the cage door so I could come out.
“Patty…” she choked out, a fresh wave of tears spilling over. “Patty didn’t wake up, Einstein. She’s gone. She’s passed away.”
The words hung in the air. I looked at the empty chair where Patty usually sat with her coffee. I looked back at Sally. The logic didn’t fit. Patty is the morning. Patty is the food. Patty is the voice.
I wanted to fix it. I wanted the crying to stop. I wanted the routine back. I knew I had to say the right thing to make the scene correct again. I accessed my memory of last night, the perfect recording stored in my mind.
I fluffed my grey feathers, pinned my eyes, and opened my black beak.
“Sally is coming tomorrow,” I mimicked, in Patty’s exact, scratchy voice. “You be a good boy.”
Sally collapsed to the floor, screaming.
I just gripped my perch, confused, wondering why the trick didn’t work.
Dr. Suvajeet Duttagupta, a nanotechnology PhD from IIT Bombay, embarked on an unexpected journey into the world of art. While his academic pursuits were rigorous, his true calling emerged in creative fields like photography, videography, and directing. For years, writing was a private pursuit, a source of personal enjoyment, but he’s recently found the confidence to share his distinctive horror-adjacent stories, often unsettling them with an eldritch twist. His works were recently published by Tasavvur and The Berlin Literary Review. You can find him sharing his words in to the social media void on BlueSky (https://bsky.app/profile/lucidillusions.in)
