The bird lands.
You don’t think much of it. A grackle, just one of the countless black-feathered things haunting Austin’s patios, loitering in parking lots, screaming from trees. They are scavengers. Opportunists taking what they can, whenever they may.
This one does not scavenge. It watches.
At the next table, a woman stares at her phone, fingers hovering over the screen. She has not taken a sip of her coffee in ten minutes. Her shoulders curl inward, her breathing shallow. There are lines on her face revealing more than her age.
The grackle hops closer to her, cocking its head. It only takes a moment.
The woman exhales, slow and careful, as if releasing something heavy. She lowers the phone, turns the screen down, reaches for her cup. Her face is softer. She looks out at the street instead of down at the words she was trying to unread.
The bird moves on.
A man sits two tables away, drumming his fingers on the wood, working at something under his breath. He flips a pen between his fingers, glancing at his watch, tapping his coffee cup, but he’s clearly not here. He is caught in something, and his mind is on more than mere finances or the weather.
The grackle lands near him. Tilts its head.
The man stills. His fingers settle. He sighs deeply with a hint of a smile. He tucks the pen behind his ear, gathers his things, and stands up, taking a long look at the world as though he’s never seen it before. He walks off.
You watch the grackle. The bird has not seen you. Yet.
You don’t believe in signs.
But.
But then you remember something. Something about why you are at this café today. Why you have kept coming back the last several days.
This table. This corner of the patio. This exact seat.
A year ago. Late spring. A warm morning. The sky sharp and blue. Like today. It was meant to be a good day. Good coffee and conversation. But words had unraveled too fast, too sharp. The wrong ones. The last ones.
You had sat here, across from the one you swore you wouldn’t lose. But people are broken and words can’t be snatched back and you had to watch them stand up, push back their chair, walk away.
A year is a long time, and yet you keep coming back to this place. This seat.
The grackle perches on the edge of your table now. Watching.
You reach for a napkin. Pull the pen from your bag. Write the words you should have said that day. Fold the napkin once.
The grackle waits.
You place the napkin on the table.
The bird hops forward. Tilts its head. Then, quick as a breath, it snatches the napkin in its beak and is gone.
You exhale.
The weight is still there. The memory does not leave. But something about it shifts, just slightly, like a door left pushed open.
You pull out your phone.
Scroll through old messages. Stop on a name. A thread long ignored. Quiet for too long.
Your thumb hovers. The familiar hesitation, the old fear.
And then, just overhead, you hear the sharp trill of a grackle, calling out into the sky.
You inhale.
And this time, you press send.
Zary Fekete (he/him) grew up in Hungary. He has a debut novella (Words on the Page) out with DarkWinter Lit Press and a short story collection (To Accept the Things I Cannot Change: Writing My Way Out of Addiction) out with Creative Texts. He enjoys books, podcasts, and many many many films.
Twitter: @ZaryFekete
Instagram: @ZaryFekete
Bluesky: @zaryfekete.bsky.social