There is a grey sparrow in my closet

He never comes out when I ask him to, and he only comes out when I try to sleep. "I'm really tired," he'll often say, but I don't believe him because he never goes to bed. I spent the first night trying to teach him tricks. You would think a sparrow that spoke might have a natural affinity for tricks, but you'd be wrong. He doesn't.

The second night he stood perched at the top corner of my protruding closet door, threatening to throw himself down from the edge. "I can't do the things I used to," and then he rattled off a list of activities woodland creatures might do in a day. I told him he wouldn't die, as he couldn't help but extend his wings in mid-dive and save himself from the terrible fate of my cold and wood paneled floor. He tried to prove me wrong but he only proved me right.

On the third night he sang to me a song he wrote, but he kept forgetting the lines because he was too busy considering whether or not to suddenly burst into falsetto. It made the parts that could have otherwise been moving seem cheap and irrelevant.

By the fourth night I had grown tired of his bullshit and closed the closet door.

The fifth night, I felt bad and opened the door just a crack, and he had prepared more songs for me. I was never going to sleep again.