I am going to categorize this story as “fiction,” because even though it happened, and happened to me, I’m having trouble believing that it’s true. Ergo, I will sort of la-di-da myself into the narrative, and hope that you enjoy the encounter as much as I did.

Time and place: a mild, late-autumn afternoon last Tuesday. Temperature around 68 degrees, with the kind of blue sky a child might imagine if his teacher told him to draw clouds on a beautiful day. I was sitting on a low slate wall outside the clinic where I’d had an MRI done because my doctor was worried about something or another. The nurse stuck me into the machine earlier than my appointed time, because the person ahead me had cancelled. My ride home wouldn’t be picking me up for at least 40 minutes, so I just sat there, my face pointed toward the sun, and leaning back on my arms, as if I were in a deck chair on an ocean liner.

Truly, I wasn’t thinking of anything at all when he fluttered through the air and landed beside me on the wall. His name was Archie (short for Archibald, he later confided).

“Hi. I’m Archie,” he declared right off. And the words were out before I had turned my head to acknowledge his existence.

Now, I’ve known about chickadees my entire life – long before I took a college course in Early Hollywood Comedies – because my father always called me “My Little Chickadee,” after the W. C. Fields movie of that same name. We also had a feeder hanging off a maple tree in our front yard. It was great fun to watch them pecking at sunflower seeds with fat and fluffy dedication (all of the chickadees who visited our yard were a bit on the plump side.)

One summer, I even trained a chickadee to eat peanuts out of my hand, which made me feel as if I was Snow White consorting with wild life in Walt Disney’s 1937 animated movie. So, I had a long history with chickadees. But only with ones that were less than half-an-inch in length who weighed less than half-an-ounce … about the size and weight of a palmful of whipped cream.

“I sort of know what happened,” Archie stated in a surprisingly gruff voice, as he gently ruffled his feathers beside me on the slate wall. Then he pointed his beak in my direction and commanded, “Look at me.”

I turned my head a full 45 degrees and glanced downward.

“What do you see?”

“Well…” I equivocated.

“I’ll answer for you,” Archie said. “Obviously. I am a bird. Specifically, a black-capped chickadee.”

I knew that. And the species’ name perfectly matched his description, because black feathers descended like a cap from his crown to a line beneath his eyes. Right under that was a white triangle about the same size as the cap. And beneath that, a black triangle. So, his whole upper body, which was as round as a feathered tennis ball, was alternating zig zags of black and white.

So cute.

“However,” Archie continued, his voice warming up for the explanation, “I am large.”

Indeed. Archibald was large. “Do you mind?” I asked, and I made a “lifting” motion with my hands.

“Not at all,” he responded placidly.

I shoved my palms beneath his undercarriage, briefly raised him, estimated his heft, lowered him, and said, “Three pounds. Maybe an ounce or two more.”

“Three pounds two ounces exactly. You should guess weights and tell fortunes in a carnival.”

“I don’t think there are any carnivals left,” I replied. “Anyway, I don’t want to join one. I’m a writer.”

“Good. You can write about me. You do you want to hear my story. Don’t you?”

“Oh, Archie.” I stared right into his eyes. “I do. I do.”

He took a deep breath, and his feathers fluffed prettily. Then he began, his voice sounding quizzical, as if, having lived through it, even he found it hard to believe.

“I was flying around…”

“When?” I asked.

“Two weeks ago, and don’t interrupt. The previous night, temperatures had dropped below 30 degrees, and I noticed that a vent was blowing warm air from the house directly onto the rafters of the garage where I was staying, making me all warm and toasty. So, later in the day, when I was flying around outside, trying to decide if I should go south for the winter or stay put. I wasn’t watching where I was going, and…”

Archie paused, turned away from me, and began to stare at the doors to the clinic where I’d just gotten an MRI. His stare was so intense, I ventured to inquire, “What happened next, Archie?’

“What happened next,” he said, his voice as remote as his thoughts, “was this. First, the door from the clinic flew open, creating a vacuum. Or do I mean a vortex? Suddenly, I got sucked out of the sky and through the door. I plummeted out of the air and landed inside the hood of a sweatshirt being worn by a skinny old woman in the waiting room. Before I had time to get my bearings, a nurse escorted her through the door to an interior room. Since I was stuck inside the hood of her sweatshirt, I accompanied her. Within seconds, she had stripped off her top and tossed it aside, with me still in it. I was thrown onto a pile of blankets. By then, I was completely disoriented and barely noticed the soft rumble of a machine nearby. It looked like a rocket ship lying on its side.”

“That was the MRI,” I said. “It means Magnetic Resonance Imaging.”

Archie ignored me.

“The nurse told the skinny lady to lie down on an upholstered bench in front of the machine. Before I could untangle myself from the blanket, she … the nurse … grabbed it and tucked it over the skinny lady’s legs. Next thing you know, the lady, the bench, the blanket and I began to slide into the machine…”

“Didn’t anybody notice you?” I asked.

“No. I didn’t twitter. I didn’t flutter. I was paralyzed with fear. And you’re interrupting again.”

“Sorry.”

“In an instant, I’m hearing thumps. Screeches. Squeaks. Rumbles. It was like I was swallowed by a convulsing whale stuck inside a rotating industrial-strength clothes dryer at the bottom of a ship in the middle of a tsunami. I stayed in that hellish cylinder for 30 minutes before the screeching and rumbling stopped. Then the machine reversed direction, the bench started to move, and we were out again. ‘We’ being the skinny woman, the blanket, and me.”

Archie turned to me with the saddest eyes I had ever seen on any living creature.

“Oh, no,” I moaned. Dreading the new direction that his tale would take. Justifiably, too, because Archie’s next words affirmed my worst fears.

“It was after I escaped from that contemptible contraption, flew out of the building, and got my bearings that I realized I had turned into …” he glanced down at his rotund, feather-covered beach-ball sized body, “…this.”

My eyes teared up. “What are you going to do?”

Archie said. “I’m going home.”

Almost imperceptibly, his sleek grey, black, and white wings began to flutter. He rose awkwardly in the air, and asked, “what’s your name?”

I told him.

“Where do you live?”

I told him.

“Would you like to hear the rest of my story?”

“Absolutely.”

“Okay,” Archie said. He hovered for a moment within inches of my face. Then he nodded his head in a quick affirmation, and said, “I’ll be back.”

Copyright © Shelly Reuben, 2025. Shelly Reuben’s books have been nominated for Edgar, Prometheus, and Falcon awards. For more about her writing, visit www.shellyreuben.com.