It was here. It was right here. I can’t remember what it looked like, or what it was, really, but I know I had it.

What I remember is the way it felt. It’s like I handled it in the dark, as if I’d found it on the nightstand after midnight. I remember it felt oddly shaped, delicate, with little articulated bits that stuck out like bird’s legs. Turn it over in your hands and you might break one off. Setting it back on the nighststand without bending some part of it, or mutilating it completely, would’ve been tricky, but keeping it in hand while I slept would’ve been even worse, so I set it down. I could play with it in the morning, I figured.

This is why I should keep a notebook by the bed all the time. A notebook is actually a bird cage, a little brass bird cage, where you can lock up any starlings you catch between your cupped hands during the night. Only when you’re the kind of groggy I was do you have both the gentle touch necessary to catch such a thing… and the simple foolishness to think it won’t fly away if you set it down next to the radio.

It was something about a point-of-view, about a perspective to use in some future story, that would surprise the reader at both the beginning and the end of the tale. But it was gimmicky, I remember. Interesting enough to warrant exploring in something longer than a short story, but too strange and conceited to stick with for something as long as a novel. So a novella, then. I think I remember the main character — who may also have been the narrator? — would have to be sort of a bastard. Or maybe something that felt like a bastard in the dark. Maybe he’s crazy? I don’t remember.

At the time, I thought it was clever and, while not necessarily groundbreaking, could be done with enough style to turn heads. It maybe wasn’t truly brilliant, but a kind of brilliant, sure. Something that could be a big break. Something praiseworthy. But in the dark, it also seemed so plainly clever, even though it had legs and a head and a beak, the same as all the others, so why did I think it was so special? And of course it had wings, the same as all the others, so now it’s gone.