Dee-Dee, Doo-Doo (A Conversation)

While soaking in our outdoor hot tub, Desiree looked out toward the pine trees on the hillside below. Steam lifted around us in slowly spiraling ribbons.

“What kind of bird is that?”

“What bird?” I asked, scanning the trees and finding nothing but branches and shadow.

“The one singing.”

“I don’t hear a bird.”

“You don’t hear the bird?”

“Nope. I’ve lost a lot of the high-pitched stuff from my range of hearing.”

“I know you don’t hear crickets.”

“Not unless I’m right on top of them. What does the bird sound like?”

“It’s just a simple song. Kinda like a chickadee.”

“We should get one of those smartphone apps that identifies birds by their songs. I actually had one for a while. There’s a bird I used to hear all the time that’s been missing for the last few years. I figured it had vanished from here. I downloaded the app and whistled the song, just to see what kind of bird it was. The app immediately responded: ‘That sounds like a human.’”

Desiree and I laughed.

“It’s a simple song, too,” I said, and then I whistled it for her: dee-dee, doo-doo.

Desiree brightened. “That’s it! That’s what I’m hearing!”

I whistled it again.

“That’s it,” she said.

“So they didn’t vanish. I just stopped hearing them. I used to hear them constantly in the trees below, years ago.”

I whistled again: dee-dee, doo-doo.

The sound floated out over the hillside, human from beginning to end, answering a bird I could no longer hear.

—Mitchell Hegman