By Maria Warner
“DO NOT ENTER”-bold black letters flare against neon-yellow ribbon stretched across my front steps.
The immediate area is cordoned off with caution tape. Neighbors and delivery drivers are being turned away for everyone’s safety.
We’ve been instructed not to make any sudden movements.
My husband, Mike, and I shelter in place. We stay away from the windows. Mike sits in a recliner reading his book, The Northern Spy. I fidget on the floor, trying to relax, failing at my yoga-corpse pose. Deciding to take matters into my own hands, I slither down the hallway from the kitchen to the laundry room, army crawling along the floor. I pull a black shirt and maroon pants from the dryer. A ski mask, forgotten since our last mountain trip, lies on a shelf. I slide it over my head.
Leaning against the wall, I try to devise a plan. Think. Think. Think. I tap my forehead with my palm.
Ah-ha. I stuff four washcloths into my pants and stick the roll of tape in my mouth. Inching my way back to the family room, my progress stopped when Mike stuck his foot out.
“What are you doing?” he asks as he flips a page in his novel.
“Silencers,” I say, waving the washcloths.
He rolls his eyes and returns to reading.
MacGyvering a chair, I wrap a washcloth on each leg securing it with the duct tape. I slide it back and forth a few times to ensure it’s soundless.
“Psst,” Mike whispers. I turn to see his eyebrows raised in disapproval.
“I want a closer look,” I say. “I need to know what we’re dealing with.”
“Don’t cause a disturbance,” he says. “We don’t want to irritate the professionals.”
I waved him off. An inch at a time, I rise from my crouch until my eyes meet the glass pane of the front door. I scanned the yard for the two people who wrapped our deck in caution tape.
They are nearly invisible in their khakis, camouflaged among the evergreens. A flicker of light. Their binocular lenses trained-on me.
“Oh,” I gasp.
They point with authority, motioning for me to look down.
There, tucked deep inside our evergreen wreath, rests a cradle of twigs and down. Four junco chicks-fuzzy, fragile, their throats pulsing with hunger-stretch their beaks toward the sky, pleading for a miracle that will come in the form of their mother’s wings.
I stop breathing.
All the noise, the caution tape, the silent commands fall away. What remains is something ancient and holy: new life, small and trembling, asking to be fed.
My bird-loving neighbors hadn’t sealed us in to keep danger out. They had created a sanctuary-so these tiny, sacred hearts could keep beating, undisturbed, into the world.
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Maria Warner is a memoirist and flash fiction writer whose work explores transformation, resilience, and the unexpected turning points that reshape a life. A former corporate professional turned artist and storyteller, she draws inspiration from family memory, sobriety, and the natural world to uncover moments of quiet revelation. She is the author of Family Camp: S’more Than a Vacation and her work has appeared in Isele Magazine and other publications. When she’s not writing, Maria is a pastel painter, hiker, and lifelong learner based in Arizona.