She awoke one day and it was there. Just there. It was the chirp that had woken her. A soft twitter, a flutter, sporadically brightening the silence. The late-morning Sunday sun flooded her room as she rolled over and saw it at her window sill. Her window was open, but it sat locked out on the opposite side of her screen.
It was a robin. It seemed rather early in the spring season for robins; in fact this was the first she’d seen this year, but she accepted it and rose from her blankets. Keeping an eye on the bird, she dragged herself to her bureau and dug around the top drawer for sweatpants. No longer feeling exposed in front of her new neighbor, she tip-toed towards the window. It was exceptionally warm for late-March, she noticed as a breeze strolled through her window. Perhaps this is what brought the Robin to her sill.
When she was within a step of the window and the bird, he saw her and hopped along the edge on his delicate feet. When he ran out of window-ledge upon which to skip, his wings fluttered and in a moment he and his song were gone. She went downstairs for breakfast.

A strikingly similar chain of events took place the following Monday morning. Her alarm brought her into an early-morning reality, and once the mechanical screaming of the clock had seized she noticed the faint cheep-cheep. She eased one eye open and glanced across the room. He was sitting there again, the same as yesterday. She repeated the previous morning’s motions: get out of bed, creep across the room, dig through drawers, and attempt to get close to the bird. The attempt failed. She went downstairs for breakfast.
The following month provided a flurry of mornings similar to the two she’d just experienced. More often that not, if his song didn’t wake her then it was the very first thing she heard each day. She always tried to look at him, figure him out, catch his angle, but he always flew away. Of course, he wasn’t there every day. How could he be? She was sure he had important places to be. But he was there quite often, watching her as she slept, waiting for her to wake, and always gone before breakfast.

She awoke early one Saturday in early April with the intent of watching him, for more than a moment this time. Her alarm shook her out of bed. She ran to the window. No robin. At least, not yet. It was only 4:30 after all. She propped a chair next to the screen and slid the glass pane up, allowing a sharp early-morning drift to grasp her room. Shielding herself in a snuggie, she waited.
She had fallen asleep in the chair, hugging her thighs to her chest, her forehead resting on her knees. She became aware of the fact as she woke, and she heard the bird. She slowly lifted her head and watched him there, hopping to and fro, singing to her, telling her it was time to wake. He hadn’t noticed her position until he playfully fluttered his wings and she laughed. He heard her and his song stopped and his eyes met her own. Seeing her so startlingly close, he hopped up from the sill and began to soar away. However, in a moment a hawk flew down from the sky, beak spread wide. The song stopped, and in a puff of feathers he was gone. She went downstairs for breakfast.