The sound that precedes her arrival is not the polite, measured tap of knuckles against wood, nor even the heavy, impatient pounding of someone demanding entrance; instead, it begins with the shrill, insistent trill of her smartwatch, a tinny alarm that reverberates through the floorboards like a heartbeat amplified by technology.

The chime is followed almost immediately by the uneven scrape of keratin against hardwood, her talons dragging gracelessly as though the floor itself recoils from the sharp tips, and then—layered on top of everything else—the frantic, chaotic rush of wings colliding with too-narrow hallway walls, each strike sending up a soft explosion of downy feathers that spin through the air like ash shaken from a restless fire.

By the time her mimicry slips beneath the door in your own borrowed voice, crooked and imperfect yet disturbingly recognizable, the words “…Hellooo, open door…” delivered with breathy insistence, you already know that resistance would be a pointless formality.

For one brief, fragile moment you allow yourself the hope that she has once again tangled herself in the laundry rack, or that her compulsive hoard has distracted her into another long session of fussing and arranging, but that hope dies the instant the first feather drifts lazily into the light spilling from the crack at your feet, accompanied by the mingled scents of birdseed, dust, and the sharp, citrus tang of her shampoo.

The combination is uniquely hers, earthy and clean and stubbornly clinging, a sensory warning that Polly has chosen to make her entrance and there is nothing to be done but receive it.

When the door finally swings wide, she doesn’t simply step into the threshold she floods into it, spilling feathers and noise and restless energy across the space. Her wings unfurl too wide for the narrow entryway before she hastily folds them back with a rustle, loose plumes scattering into the lamplight like confetti.

Polly's sharp talons click against the rug in a cadence too sharp to ignore, punctuation marks carved into every step as though she is declaring ownership with each strike.

The corridor seems to warp around her; the scrape of careless wingbeats marks the plaster, every surface bears a brush of lingering down, and then she is simply there before you, her head cocked in that familiar angle that is equal parts curiosity and judgement.

Up close, the details overwhelm: her grey feathers lie in soft, intricate scallops, though tufts stick out where her nervous preening has left small patches uneven; her curved beak gleams in the low light, sharp, powerful, a natural tool for cracking and cutting, but also carrying the faint smudge of tea she insisted on trying earlier; her eyes, ringed by bare patches of skin, are startlingly expressive, darting quick and restless, widening when she wants your attention, narrowing when she wants your approval.

She leans forward now, nostrils flaring, inhaling slowly and deliberately, as though memorizing your scent might fortify her against the tide of low self-worth that forever presses against her chest.

Her smartwatch chimes again, the glow catching in the dark wells of her eyes, and with a theatrical flourish that is both smug and pleading she raises her arm. Her feathers puff in a soft explosion as she declares in her broken mimic voice, each syllable shaped with effort and pride:

She does not linger to see if you agree. Instead, she sweeps past you in a blur of grey and white, her tail feathers trailing behind her like the careless brushstroke of a painter laying claim to canvas. The sharp clack of her talons follows her slow descent through the living room.

Then, with a smug beat of wings that showers more feathers across the room, she adds, in her own imperfect mimic, swelling with pride that she is finally back.

Her words, though fractured, carry a gravity that makes them more than mimicry; they sound like an invocation, a ritual declaration, her attempt to pin herself firmly in this space, she proves her right to be here.

“…Polly here. Polly home.”