The silence inside the glass enclosure, broken only by the rustle of synthetic leaves and the steady purr of the climate duct, was a sharp shift from the squawks echoing above his small flat at the sanctuary. The sealed manila envelope rested inside his nylon rucksack, its heavy paper corners pressing into his spine.
Byt, perched regally on a thick, gnarled branch that seemed to defy gravity, watched Tymon with unblinking intensity. Those intelligent yellow eyes were unsettling. They held too much understanding for a bird, or perhaps, precisely the right amount for this particular bird.
“Good morning, Byt,” Tymon offered, his voice soft, almost a murmur against the tropical humidity. He moved slowly, deliberately, towards the elaborate feeding station, avoiding sudden movements that might startle the macaw. Zofia had provided a meticulous schedule: specific seeds, fortified pellets, fresh fruits, and a bewildering array of organic sprouts. Everything was precise, sterile, expensive.
He placed an acrylic treat sphere—a clear globe packed with walnuts and dried berries that demanded three turns to open—near Byt’s perch. It was a standard enrichment device, something Tymon often recommended for intelligent parrots. “Thought you might enjoy a little project,” he said, gesturing toward the contraption. Byt merely blinked, then swiveled his head, presenting Tymon with the back of his cerulean skull. The message was clear: unimpressed.
“Right. Noted,” Tymon mumbled, a faint blush creeping up his neck. He spent the next hour simply being present, talking to Byt in low tones about the weather, about his day, about the intricacies of avian foraging behaviors. He spoke about the brassica hybrids thriving under the mist nozzles, about the digital hygrometer on the wall, about anything to fill the silence. Byt remained a statuesque, magnificent, utterly indifferent sentinel.
In her minimalist command center, a chamber as bare as an empty terminal, Zofia Orlecka sat before a wall-sized monitor. The screen showed a split feed: Tymon arranging sliced papaya on a stainless steel dish on the left, Byt turning his tail feathers to the plastic sphere on the right. A faint, almost imperceptible twitch played at the corner of Zofia’s lips. She’d expected the man to try to ‘engage’ the bird. To offer ‘enrichment.’ But the quiet persistence, the way his shoulders never slumped, the soft, patient cadence of his voice… it was unexpected. An anomaly in her data streams. She watched as Tymon, abandoned by the bird, stepped back against the tempered glass to take notes. A flicker of something, akin to curiosity, softened the stark lines of her expression before her usual composure settled back into place.
Just as Tymon reached for a piece of almond to attempt a hand-feed, the heavy sliding door hissed back on its track. A whirlwind of vibrant color and effervescent energy burst through the opening. Agata Orlecka, Zofia’s younger sister, stood framed in the doorway, a wide, dazzling smile on her face, her auburn hair a playful contrast to the penthouse’s stark palette. She wore a flowing, emerald-green jumpsuit that seemed to ripple with her every movement.
“Well, hello there, bird whisperer!” Agata’s voice was warm, loud, and utterly out of place in the silent, reverent space. She strode in, her gaze immediately landing on Tymon. “You must be Tymon. Agata. And have you met the drama queen yet?” She gestured toward Byt with a theatrical sweep that prompted the macaw to flare his primary wing coverts in clear disgust.
“Agata, please,” Tymon murmured, hunching his shoulders against the volume. “We are working on baseline trust.”
“Trust? For what? His next corporate buyout?” Agata let out a ringing laugh that echoed off the glass walls. “Don’t mind him. He pretends to be a stoic philosopher, but he’s just waiting for Zofia to hand him another shareholder report to shred. He loves the confetti.”
Byt let out a piercing squawk that cut her short, and Tymon instinctively shifted half a step between the visitor and the perch.
Agata simply raised an eyebrow. “Oh, look at Mr. High-and-Mighty. Still got that corporate drone voice, I see. What, did Zofia program you to mimic only her most condescending intonations?”
“Actually, he vocalized in his natural register,” Tymon said softly, keeping his hands low. “He is exceptionally perceptive.”
“Oh, I know. Scarily so,” Agata said, then lowered her voice conspiratorially. “She talks to him like he’s a board member, you know. I swear, he understands quarterly reports better than I do. Anyway, don’t let her scare you. She’s all bark and… well, she is all bark.” She winked.
Later that afternoon, after Agata had finally departed, leaving behind a faint scent of something floral and entirely un-penthouse-like, Tymon found himself in Zofia’s office. He was meant to provide a ‘daily progress report,’ which mostly consisted of detailing Byt’s continued disinterest in his existence.
Zofia sat behind a desk made from a seamless block of honed basalt, reviewing an array of floating schematics. She didn't look up when he entered. “Mr. Nowak. Report.” Her voice was as sharp and clean as the lines of her office.
“Byt monitored the foraging sphere for twenty-three minutes before ignoring it,” Tymon began, glancing down at his screen. “He consumed eighty-seven percent of the provided seed mix and ignored the fortified pellets completely. He responded to my vocalizations with one natural vocal flare, likely an assertion of perimeter boundaries.” He paused, keenly aware of how absurd the formal breakdown sounded. He was reporting on a bird’s disdain for a toy as if it were a major corporate failing.
Zofia finally looked up, her dark eyes piercing. “And the will? Any progress on the recitation?”
Tymon swallowed. “Not yet, Ms. Orlecka. That requires a deeper level of trust and engagement. I’m focusing on establishing a positive association first.” He then remembered a fleeting thought from earlier, a desperate attempt to break through the rigid atmosphere. “Actually, I… I thought perhaps a bit of humor might help. To lighten the mood, you know? For Byt. And for you.”
Zofia’s eyebrow arched, a subtle yet formidable gesture. “Humor? Explain the methodology.”
“Well,” Tymon started, the back of his neck prickly under her focus. “A riddle, really. Why did the parrot get fired from the grocery stall?” He held his hands together, his smile brittle. “Because he kept shrieking, ‘I want a banana! I want a banana!’”
A silence descended, thick and absolute. Zofia stared at him, unblinking. Tymon’s smile faltered, then vanished. He should not have done that. He should never, ever have done that.
Finally, Zofia spoke. “The premise is illogical. A parrot would be an asset at a fruit stand for its ability to attract attention, assuming the squawking was controlled. If uncontrolled, it represents an inefficient data packet that would deter customers. Therefore, the ‘pun’ fails in its core logical framework.” Her analysis was delivered with the precision of a surgeon dissecting an algorithm. Tymon cleared his throat, pulling his collar away from his throat.
But then, just as he was about to apologize profusely, something happened. A miniscule shift. A fractional softening around her eyes, a faint upturn at the very corner of her mouth, so quick it was barely there. A ghost of a smile, gone before he could even be certain he’d seen it. Zofia lowered her eyes back to the hovering graphs, leaving him to wonder if the twitch had been a trick of the track lighting.
Twenty minutes later, packing his notebooks inside the habitat vestibule, he heard sneakers scuff the terrazzo. Agata Orlecka was back, leaning against the glass door frame, a mischievous glint in her eyes. “Still coaxing that tyrant into conversation? Good luck. He’s more likely to audit your taxes than recite prose.” She glanced down the hallway, stepped over the threshold, and leaned in. “Listen, I watched your stand-up routine on the corridor camera. Spare yourself the knock-knock jokes. She treats small talk like corrupted firmware. But remember this—” Agata surveyed the silent corridor, her tone dropping down to a hiss “—she is not dying. She’s just miserable. Get her outside before she fuses with the mainframe.”