They had been married two days shy of 8 years and the silences had begun like a small scratch and then deepened into a wound. It had begun when she had an unsettling run in at the local train station with an ex fiancé and he had called the house that night. Ajay had answered the landline and when he furiously dropped the phone back into its cradle, he promptly disconnected her from her past and from his own life. In an attempt to pacify him, she bought a TV and was a welcome distraction for a few months but slowly the familiar drone of the noise fell like a backdrop upon their daily existence and they retreated to their safe silences. She would be perched on her bed, tapping away at her laptop with the ruffled blanket drooping sadly over the corner of the bed or stirring a pot of rasam and he would walk in the doorway, his dishevelled face outlined with the hint of an eager tale and when his eyes met hers, he’d decide against it and walk away with hunched shoulders. She could almost swear there was a natural and tangible evaporation of interest and intention when they realised the other was present. It seemed like the weight of their words and thoughts had sunk their souls into a pit of nothingness and neither of them knew how to climb out without stepping on the other’s head to hoist them out. “Well, what did you used to talk about before?” her well-meaning and much married friend had once asked her when she had let slip that she felt lost in her marriage. “Nothing really important, I don’t think.” she replied wistfully, draining the last of her coffee. “We were just more conversational and now there is always a wall of silence that we can’t seem to penetrate.” "Try to maybe take a vacation together? Go someplace, just the two of you. It will be romantic and perhaps just what you need to rekindle….” But she couldn’t. The idea of being cooped up somewhere with the pressure to confront each other and co-exist would cause them to burst. Even though the fissure in their union was evident, she would be content that they were together. That he even came home at night. That she was married. But she longed for companionship. Someone that would cock their head to the side in looks of adoration and unconditional love rather than the confusing and helpless glances he threw at her. She really wanted a baby but given the discussions that would lead up to and follow that desire, she decided to settle for a dog. When she brought it up one Thursday night, to her surprise, he seemed to agree and was even slightly enthusiastic. They took a lazy afternoon bike ride to the local pet store where a rotund man in an orange safari suit showed them two mangy puppies. She was optimistic that love would transform them into Pedigree advertisement worthy glory but he had drifted off into the store, staring at the other species of pets and she followed helplessly after him. He was biting his nails, something he always did when he was intrigued and asking questions about feeding chameleons, keeping a guinea pigs’ cage clean and the lifespan of goldfishes. The pet store owner’s answers were growing progressively less animated. His impatience ticked higher as he realised that they weren’t settling on an animal. He stuck his forefinger in his mouth, trying to dislodge the betel nuts in the crevices of his stained red teeth. By the time she caught up to him, he was peering into the cage of an Amazon parrot. “ “Very smart bird, this is, saar! She learns words very fast. Very intelligent breed. You should take.” The parrot was perched on the side of the cage as he nodded in time to the shopkeeper’s words, deep in thought. The parrot jumped onto its swing and made an adorable babbling sound. He turned to her and looked longingly and caught off guard by the sudden need for her opinion, although it wasn't what sge originally had in mind, she obliged with a nod and within a few minutes, they had a family member that would tal. And talk she did. The bird screeched and babbled gibberish and they laughed with her. Her initial apprehension about the smell and the inability to touch the bird soon wore off. They installed her airy cage in the dining room just off the corridor to our bedroom and she woke them (and their heavily annoyed neighbours) at 7am with her loud chattering each morning. She spent a few minutes singing around the bird, while making their morning coffee in the hope that the bird would recognise her voice. They repeated words like “Hello”, “Good morning!” and even “Au Revoir!” wondering if the pitch would strike her as interesting and cause a breakthrough. She would just stare at them intently as they coughed out the same phrases and just return an amused shrill dense gurgle. After a few months and no progress with the bird, she landed a huge publishing contract and was barely in the house each morning, often just having coffee and breakfast at work and forgetting to sing or speak to the bird. The initial re-connection that they had forged began to come apart again. He was permanently stationed in front of the TV, often falling asleep there as well after eating greasy ghee rice or soya flavoured chicken noodles from a dirty looking shack of a restaurant down the road. She lived on heaped doses of guilt and got by with barely any sleep. Eventually her work evened out and she had more time to spare. He complained of work deadlines and was on his phone a lot. She attempted to resume her old routine, singing to the bird diligently. One morning, as the dosas were sizzling on the tava, and she was belting out the lyrics to 'Sweet Caroline', the parrot squawked and it sounded like something comprehensible for a change. She came running into the room and stared wide-eyed in disbelief at the bird. Her curiosity was piqued and she sat down quietly. She did it again. "Meh.." Then again "May", "Meg", "Meghana". With the final word, she bolted upright in her seat, almost startling the bird. "Would he really?" She heard him shaving in the bathroom and as she walked in, he was singing along to the same song on the radio merrily. He seemed so happy, so content. So unlike the man she usually got to see. She pulled his phone free from the charging plug and swiftly checked the messages. There her name was sprawled all over the history of messages and calls. She quickly returned it to its original position and walked out to the kitchen in a haze. She discarded a burnt dosa and began to fry another one. He came out fully dressed and without even a peek into the kitchen announced that he was leaving and slammed the door behind him. She realised that he had forgotten his lunch and began to follow after him but then kicked herself for thinking he would be hungry without it. Of course he'd have lunch with her. She was probably some weird secretary type. Without thinking it through, she plucked a knife from the countertop and walked to the front of the cage. She was crying as she undid the cage lock but her hands were steady. She wished the damn bird had shut up. She wished she had just got a dog or a cat like she had wanted. That way she could have gone on living in denial. She didn't want to know. She wanted things to go back to how they were. She would tell him that the bird had flown away. A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, she thought to herself as she sat in the Starbucks cafe, sipping her coffee and staring out of the window. The blood stained knife lay next to her handbag, covered with her blue silk scarf.
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