Bird made of musical notes on a shoulder

The bird is back on the wire outside, the same small grey thing that has been wrecking my shifts since March. I had the manuscript paper flat under the lamp and my pencil resting on the third stave when it began, and I stopped mid-bar, because it was singing the exact phrase I had failed to write all week. It rose a fifth at the end and then dropped, like someone setting a cup down carefully.

I tried every clef in the drawer. Alto sounded like a cough and bass like a dropped spanner. Only the treble clef fitted the way the bird held its breath before the last note, so I drew it as wide as my hand, its tail curling down the page. Then, without deciding to, I bent the staves off its top like a wing and let the crotchets fall beneath it as feathers. When I looked up the wire was empty except for the orange glow of the street lamp, and a tram bell was ringing somewhere towards Piccadilly.

Wednesday, 7.15 am. The printer's apprentice found the sheet on my desk and asked whether it was a logo for the new catalogue. I told him it was a mistake. He laughed and said mistakes like that usually sell. I took it home anyway and pinned it above the kettle.

Thursday, 11.40 pm. The bird came back at the same minute. I didn't open the window. I opened the drawer and found my pencil already in my hand, and I understood I had been copying it all along, not the other way round. Tonight I leave the window open and wait for it to finish the phrase.