The third in a series of one-shot short stories.
I bought the jacket at a thrift store on Hawthorne because it was twelve dollars and looked like I could survive nuclear winter. The woman at the register said, "That thing is ridiculous." I said, "I know." She scanned it twice because she didn't believe the price tag.
The jacket is enormous. Not big. Enormous. The sleeves go past my hands. The bottom hangs to my knees. When I zip it up I look like a walking sleeping bag. Which is the point. I wanted to disappear into it.
First time I wore it on the MAX train, I felt something moving. Not the train. Something inside the jacket. A flutter against my ribs. I thought maybe the lining was coming loose. I unzipped it a little and looked down. Nothing visible. But the feeling stayed. Something alive in there.
At home I laid the jacket on my bed and stared at it. The quilted sections are sewn in horizontal lines. Puffy chambers all the way down. I pressed my hand against one of the chambers. It pushed back. Not like fabric. Like something small and alert responding to pressure.
I didn't wear it for three days.
My roommate Jessa said I was being weird. "It's a jacket. You're having a freakout about a jacket."
"There's something in it."
"Yeah. Filling. That's how jackets work."
I put it on again because Portland was doing that thing where it rains sideways and my other coat is basically a windbreaker but corduroy. The moment I zipped up, the movement started again. Definitely not fabric. Definitely not filling. This was purposeful. Intentional.
On the bus I sat very still and paid attention. The movement was in multiple chambers. Not just one. I counted at least seven separate points of activity. Small pulses. Shifts in weight. And then I heard it. A sound so quiet I thought I imagined it. A chirp. High and quick. Then another one from a different chamber.
Birds.
The jacket is full of birds.
I got off at the next stop and walked to Laurelhurst Park and sat on a bench and unzipped the jacket slowly. I spread it open. I looked down at the quilted chambers. Nothing. Just black nylon and stitching. I pressed my palm against the chest area. Something pressed back. Tiny feet. I could feel them through the fabric.
"Okay," I said out loud. "Okay."
I zipped the jacket back up. Went home. Jessa was at work. I took off the jacket and laid it on the kitchen table and got a seam ripper from the junk drawer. I opened one of the quilted chambers. Very carefully. Just a small opening in the stitching.
A sparrow hopped out.
Just hopped out onto my kitchen table like this was normal. Like it had been waiting. It looked at me. I looked at it. It chirped once and flew to the window and sat on the sill.
I looked into the opening I'd made. There were more in there. I could see them now. Four sparrows in that one chamber alone. They looked comfortable. Like they'd been living there a while.
The sparrow on the windowsill flew back and squeezed itself through the gap. I stitched it back up as fast as I could.
That night I couldn't sleep. I kept thinking about how many chambers the jacket has. I counted twenty-four. If each chamber has four or five birds, that's potentially over a hundred birds. Living in my jacket. Eating what. Drinking what. Doing what all day while I walk around the city.
I started wearing the jacket everywhere. Even inside. Even when it was warm. Jessa said, "You're going crazy." I didn't care. I needed to understand what was happening.
The birds have routines. In the morning when I first put the jacket on, there's a lot of activity. Fluttering. Chirping. By afternoon they settle down. In the evening they get active again. They have a schedule. They have a society in there.
I started leaving food in the pockets. Crumbs. Seeds. The food would be gone by the end of the day. I left a small ziploc full of water in the inner pocket. Empty by evening, a hole poked in it. They're eating. They're drinking. They're surviving.
On the MAX train a man sat next to me even though there were other seats. He was too close. I could smell his cologne. The jacket started moving. All the chambers at once. Aggressive fluttering. The man looked at me. "Is your jacket vibrating?"
"No," I said.
"It's definitely moving."
"It's not."
He moved to another seat. The fluttering stopped. The birds were protecting me. Or protecting themselves. Or maybe there's no difference.
I told my therapist. She adjusted her glasses and wrote something down. "And how does this make you feel?"
"I don't know. Safe? Less alone? Crazy?"
"Do you think the birds are real?"
"I know they're real."
"Have you shown anyone?"
"I showed myself. I opened a chamber. One came out."
"And then what happened?"
"It went back in."
She wrote more notes. Increased my medication. I didn't fill the prescription. The birds were real. I didn't need medication for reality.
Jessa caught me talking to the jacket. I was sitting on my bed asking the birds what they wanted. Asking if they were okay in there. Asking if they wanted out.
"Absolutely not," Jessa said.
"What."
"You're talking to your jacket."
"I'm talking to the birds in the jacket."
She moved out two weeks later. Said she couldn't handle it. Said I needed help. I didn't argue. The apartment was quieter without her. Just me and the jacket and the forty-seven birds I'd finally counted by carefully opening and closing each chamber.
Forty-seven birds living in quilted nylon chambers. Eating crumbs from my pockets. Drinking from bird-friendly water pouches. Existing in a space that shouldn't work but does.
I'm wearing the jacket right now. It's June. It's seventy-eight degrees outside. People stare. I don't care. The birds are quiet today. Content. I can feel them breathing. Tiny lungs expanding and contracting against my body.
Sometimes I think about letting them out. Unzipping the jacket and shaking it until they all fly away. But they went back in before. The one I released. It chose to return.
Maybe they like it in there. Maybe the jacket is better than the world. Maybe they know something I don't about safety and enclosure and choosing your own cage.
I think about taking the jacket off. Hanging it in the closet. Being a normal person who doesn't walk around in winter gear during summer. But every time I unzip it, I feel exposed. Vulnerable. The birds are my insulation. Not from cold. From everything else.
Yesterday on the bus a little kid pointed at me. "Mommy, that’s a really big coat."
His mom pulled his hand down. "Don't point."
The jacket vibrated slightly. The birds responding to attention. To being seen. To existing in a way that makes people uncomfortable.
I'm okay with that. I'm okay with being the girl in the ridiculous jacket. The girl who's too warm all the time. The girl who’s roommate moved out. The girl who probably needs help but isn't asking for it.
Because inside the jacket, pressed against the nylon, living in chambers meant for synthetic fill, are forty-seven birds that chose to stay when they could have left.
And I don't know what that means but it means something.
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