The birds come to my window. To make sure I'm still there, black beaks pecking the glass, three times, like a knock on the door. I move under the covers just to reassure them. Yes, I'm here. This is true, this reassurance of their curiosities, but it is also false. I am gone—my mind a molecule of dust on a Midwestern road, surrounded by tall stalks of corn. An aquamarine convertible idling its engine, a grandfather pulling whiskey from a flask in between chest heaves. His granddaughter, a young woman with attentive eyes following the panting efforts of the family dog chasing a coyote it will never reach, knowing this, pursuing its strange cousin until exhausted. I am the dust aroused in its wake, the dust caking the flask, floating in the whiskey. I am the dust lodged in the eye of the young woman unblinking, resolute, knows where she stands. She reaches into her pocket and brings a bag of dried corn kernels into her extended palm to the birds, whispers in their ears to check on me in my room.