Short Story - Moments

A wooden hanger clattered to the floor.

            “Oops,” I muttered, absentmindedly. I used my foot to nudge it into the pile of hangers that lay next to my closet, and then moved to pick up one of the thin new ones, covered in some sort of velvety stuff to make them anti-slip. I began to slot it into the straps of a dress, and then caught a movement out of the corner of my eye.

            Outside on the railing was a tiny bird. A dark-eyed junco, I thought, happily. They had always been one of my favorite songbirds, for some reason lost to time. It hopped sideways, its little head darting this way and that. I smiled at it. Not a performance; there was no one else to see it, just me and the bird. But I stopped to watch until it flitted away, quick as it had come.

            I waited a moment longer before resuming my task, hanging the dress on the rack. I wondered; does everyone else have those moments? Those little times where something as tiny as a songbird is enough to make you pause, and smile, if you let it?

I figured that they must.