Bird on a Branch

Why is it looking at me like that?  Perched above my head on a low hanging branch was a little yellow bird; a brightly colored creature that stood out from the bare, muted branches that surrounded it.  My eyes were drawn to it as soon as it came into my field of vision as if attracted by some sort of invisible magnetism.  After several minutes staring at one another unable to tear my eyes away from it, its gaze began to make me feel uncomfortable though I was unsure why exactly.

I thought about swinging my arms wildly in an attempt to scare it off.  But, why?  It wasn't doing any harm just sitting there, so why was I so bothered by it?  Just because I couldn’t seem to look away and didn't like the way it was seemingly looking at me, if it even was looking at me, how weak did that make me; helpless victim to a bird small enough that it could fit in the palm of my hand.  I felt ashamed at my urge to act in a violent manner.  Still, I could not look away from it.

Gradually, I began to have this funny feeling that it was trying to tell me something.  It felt as if there was a message within its gaze that I needed to decipher.  Something crucially important, potentially even life altering.  A sort of cryptic, cosmically scaled, peek outside of the window of reality type of answer to a question that I couldn't have possibly known to ask, but now needed desperately to acquire for some reason that was still very much unclear.  Try as I might though, I couldn't perceive anything in particular.  It was as if I was missing a crucial puzzle piece that would then start a cascade of other pieces to fall into place revealing what was currently obscured from me.

Then suddenly, it flew away.  Vanishing within a single blink that came both as relief from its ensnaring gaze and my now horribly, uncomfortably dry eyes and yet also dread at the revelation that I would never find that answer.  That important message, gone forever.