The Hummingbird Girl

With thanks and apologies to James Hudnall

Author of the Esper's and Interface series

If someone had asked Clarissa when she put up the first hummingbird feeder, she probably wouldn't have been able to remember. She had been living in the apartment with the terrace for six years, and couldn't remember being there without at least some of the feeders. And it had been probably three years that all five had been hanging there; the terra cotta bird baths with the cobalt-blue bowls were there before the feeders -- that much she knew. One bird bath held wild bird seed, the other fresh water. And over the years, more and more birds would gather on the terrace, until Clarissa didn't feel quite so lonely anymore. It was lucky that the neighbors didn't mind the birds. Most of them weren't home much, anyway; it was a mainly singles complex, and the majority of the occupants spent their lives in the endless social dance of searching for partners and then discarding them only to begin the search again. Clarissa didn't know much about that dance, not even how to go about learning the opening moves. She couldn't remember when she hadn't been alone, supported first by the trust fund her dead parents left her, and lately by her salary as a Research Biologist at the Lawrence Livermore Lab.

The people she worked with were friendly enough, and occasionally Clarissa would be invited on an outing or a party. But she rarely went; she had tried that during her college years, but was too shy and socially inept to make much of an impression on anyone. So she spent most of her time working, watching the birds, or teaching people to read at the Concord Community Center.