We locked eyes at a Byrds concert.

It was 1966, and there was nowhere else I wanted to be than following my favorite band on tour. At the time, I didn’t know they weren’t real birds, but that didn’t stop me from enjoying it.

Her name was Jani. She was beautiful, we had a band in common, and she didn’t carry disease. That’s all it took to know I wanted her more than anyone I’d met before. She was also following the Byrds on tour, and we talked at every show, but if you paid attention to my abysmally executed identity reveal, you’d know that I was too shy to ask her out. But, for the sake of plot convenience, I suddenly got up the courage to do it at the last show.

Our first date took us to my favorite eatery, Grubway. I still fondly remember when we both slurped the same worm from different ends and met in the middle. After that, we went walking in the park and hung out on a few power lines. When I got her back to her birdhouse later that night, I didn’t try anything, because I am a respectable, Birch-going individual. Also, cloacas sicken me.

The Summer of Love came and went, and three terrible Beatles records later, we were still together. It surprised even me. Before Jani, I never had a steady relationship. Of course, there were affairs here and there, like my disastrous romance with Helen of Troy, or when Gabriel and I were invited back to Mary’s place, but that was the first time I experienced such a strong feeling.

I learned it’s hard to explain that feeling. It’s sort of a rush that warms your brain, wets your eyes, and makes you smile. However, I lack the lips to smile, so instead I just open my beak slightly. Love can be an addiction, and in my case, I never wanted to get clean. I proposed to her on December 6, 1969, at the Altamont concert.

Jani and I married a year later and moved in with her parents because the nesting market wasn’t good at the time. Her father was old-fashioned; he “didn’t agree with” seahawks, so it created a tense environment. We would’ve moved in with my parents, but they were traveling the world by boat.

Eventually, a nice place opened up in the sticks. I’m not a great builder, but our house was made with love… and twigs. Married life was fun: I woke up every morning and found she had given me a nice plump worm in bed. She also gave me breakfast. Afterward, I went to my job as an advisor to the Nixon Administration. They always sent me home with government documents to use as nest reinforcement, which I thought was kind of them. My wife appreciated it too, and I made sure there was time for us to have a nice night.

We talked a lot about starting a family. It was a big responsibility, and at first, we thought we were too busy for it, due to my being implicated in the Watergate scandal and her part-time job of dressing princesses, but we changed our tune after I was acquitted.

I still don’t understand avian reproduction, but it worked. We prepared for children to be hatched into a welcoming environment. It was confusing at times. When Jani threw up, I didn’t know if it was morning sickness or lunch. When the eggs were laid, I dedicated most of my day to incubating them. When I didn’t do that, I wrote part of a book that would later become The Shining after selling the incomplete draft to my dear friend Steve.

We waited. And waited. And waited.

The eggs never hatched.

Our pain was immeasurable. Heartbroken, we attempted to go on with our lives, but our relationship only got worse after that. We both got irritated easily and said things we shouldn’t have said. My smile slowly faded, and I realized we’d never get back what we used to have.

That’s how it goes sometimes. Love is lost even when you try so hard to keep it. Soon enough, all I could do was watch her pack her things and leave the nest. We eventually lost touch, and I haven’t seen her in nearly fifty years. Just like disco and my teeth, our relationship did not survive the seventies.

I abandoned the nest too, and moved down to a developing city my parents had retired to by the name of Cape Coral. I got a job as a mascot, and as they say, the rest is history.

Maybe the real love story was between me and this school, but I still think about Jani. I feel very fortunate to have known her, and I recognize that I might never know love like I did when I was with her, but I’ve had a good time dating your mother instead.

I apologize for the fowl anecdotes in this story.