Vachon Imagined

The cardinal chirped, and as I gathered my senses inward, I heard it behind me, the sound threading itself toward my right ear as though the bird had chosen that single part of me to serenade. Not the room, not the morning, not the world—only me.

I rose slowly from my chair and walked toward the window, drawn by the sound as if it carried a hidden language beneath it. I knew the call. I had heard it before, in other seasons of my life, in moments where grief sat so heavily inside me I thought existence itself might hollow me out, suck the marrow from my bones, and leave behind only the evidence of suffering too ancient to name.

Still, the cardinal continued.

I could not see it. Only hear it.

Its song moved through the air like something sacred—sharp and alive against the hush of the room, against the faint scent of dust and rain drifting through the cracked windowpane. Each note seemed untouched by despair, untouched by whether anyone witnessed it at all. The bird sang because singing was its nature. Because devotion does not require an audience.

And I stood there listening, feeling something inside me loosen.

How strange that faith sometimes arrives not as a miracle, but as a sound. A small red body hidden somewhere among the trees, calling into the invisible, singing as though the world had never once broken its heart.