Birds can be annoying. They poop on the windshield of your parents’ Chevy Impala. Wake you before the alarm goes off. Nest in places that aren’t safe, like a planter on the deck overflowing with geraniums, lantana, and wave petunias. The planter costs six weeks of babysitting money – a gift for Mother’s Day. Your mother oohs and aahs, then forgets all about it. You water the flowers yourself, every morning. You can’t let anything happen to them. They’re too beautiful, too expensive. You remove the eggs the wren had put there (which surely would not have appreciated getting wet every day) and put them in a raggedy nest you’d fashioned yourself out of twigs, straw, and string, tucked into the hollow of a seagrape tree. You’ve worn gloves so the wren won’t recognize your scent. But somehow the bird knows her eggs have been tampered with and abandons them.

“They can still hatch, can’t they?” you ask your father, your face twisted with worry.

“Maybe. Let’s wait and see.”

The eggs are smaller than your thumb. A washed-out skim milk white.

He taps one gently with his fingertip, as if he expects something to tap back. 

“Why don’t you put them in your room?” he suggests. “They’ll be safe there.”

You lay them on your desk. Eliana, Emma, Elijah, and Eggbert, the littlest. When you do your homework, you talk to them. Tell them what happened at school – if Samantha Grey said something mean on the bus, whether Tyler Benevento pulled your hair. Sometimes you sing to them, write them poems.   

One day you come home and they’re gone.

“What’d you do with my eggs?” you ask your mother.

She gestures toward the trash. You can’t bear to fish out the broken shells, mixed in with coffee grounds and sandwich crusts.

“Murderer,” you yell.

“That’s ridiculous. They’re already dead.”

And even though you want to shake her and make her listen for once, you know she’s right.  

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Beth Sherman has had more than 200 stories published in literary journals, including Flash Frog, Fictive Dream, Bending Genres and Smokelong Quarterly. Her work is featured in Best Microfiction 2024 and Best Small Fictions 2025. She’s also a multiple Pushcart and Best of the Net nominee. She can be reached on social media @bsherm36.