A Sad Thing

My assigned parking space is in a secured lot underground, probably about half a mile from my building downtown. To get in, you have to swipe your ID badge, and the hydra-rol doors whoosh violently up and clap down behind you after you've passed through.

It's a terrible place. I hate it. The ceiling is low and hung with glaring fluorescent lights. The cement floor is splashed with oil and the old coffee stains of decades. The sound of giant ventilation fans boom through the structure and decrepit pipes snake the concrete walls.

Which is why my heart broke when I had parked my car and was walking through this nefarious place and spotted a mockingbird, chirping and puffed up, on the rim of a garbage can. I was shocked by the sorrowful love that flooded through me as soon as I laid eyes on him. I loved him so thoroughly that I half-believed that he surely must be able to feel it arcing between us. I approched him, but he flew away, clumps of tar stuck to his little feets. A little piece broke off of the corner of my heart and shattered. He landed on the cement and distractedly picked at the tar. I walked past him, and he flew with me, landing about 10 feet in front of me, watching me warily with his little bright eyes. Would he follow me to freedom?

But, as soon as I got close to the loud doors, he flew up into a level that I couldn't reach with my ID badge and was gone.