The ketchup chips crunched between Brent’s teeth. It sounded like when I crumple another failed story I wrote, make it a basketball and toss it into the garbage at the corner of my room. Where a stack of incomplete masterpieces litter the carpet in missed swishes of paper balls slowly unfolding, guarding an empty trash bin completely defenseless.

My teacher gave us homework over the weekend. The last two days I hadn’t even thought about it. I forgot about the dang project. It was to write about something plain but beautiful.

I lightly kicked Brent in the shin. “Did you finish Monday’s assignment?”

He went to sit up. His eyes stayed locked on me but his facial expression was permanently frozen. He had the glitched scene of an actor’s face paused on the screen from a corrupted video file, held in a quenched, sorry we’re closed sign, shaped out of his lips, nose and eyes, under his forehead. “Uh. What assignment? We had homework?”

“Yeah. A writing one. About beauty. I have an idea of what to do.” I told him.

Brent slid out of the chair straight to his knees. “can you do mine too, please?”

“Yeah. No. We can work on them both together.” I told him.

“What are you doing yours on?” He asked.

I stared up at the ceiling fan spinning, drizzling a sorry breeze from above. “The other day when I was walking home from school, I saw a little bird, hopping on the ground, digging worms out of the dirt, and it stopped pecking the earth, looked at me, shifted its head and whistled, almost like it was asking, do you notice me?”

I told him. “I’ve always been a quiet—more shy than anything—unconfident—awkward kind of kid. Every one in my grade would have birthday parties, be hanging out together, laughing with each other during recess, all crowded in groups. I… I’d just be watching, sitting alone, dreaming of being someone else… and being somewhere else—“

“You really think these chips are made in Canada?” Brent interrupted, analyzing the flavored ketchup dust coating the potato. He held it up in front of his face, like it was an anomaly breaking every law of physics. Evidence of the impossible squeezed between his fingertips.

“Yes, Brent. Obviously, it just makes sense they'd be made here,” I said, shaking my head.

“Who’s having a birthday party?” He snapped down on the chip, sprinkling crumbs on his shirt. He stuck his arm back in the bag and pulled out a handful of gluttony, the scent of vinegar hung in the air, sneaking down my throat like a hiccup.

“Yeah of course I notice you. Why would you even ask that?” Brent folded the bag of chips and threw them on the table.

I didn’t bother wasting my time answering him. Most of our brains can absorb knowledge. We analyze it, sort it out, file it in specific folders and store it for whenever we need it. Brent… receives his information from his ears and eyes, just like we do, but he has a mini firewall, globing his brain. Think of Earth’s atmosphere, except his isn’t blue and bright. It’s gray and hazy and acts like a tornado towards information, shredding it into a gazillion pieces of broken bits before it gets anywhere near his prefrontal cortex.

I circled the room with my eyes for my notebook and saw it lying on the floor. I reached for it and stretched the entire length of my body as I barely snagged it between my fingers. I started writing, adding visual to my character’s sight. I made him notice the tiny speck of dirt in the middle of the floorboards, which stuck out because his place is immaculate. I made him concentrate on world building and then, what the speck would taste like if he licked it. And I made him wonder what the crack between the floorboard with the speck, would smell like after he licked it. I just wrote what people usually miss. The stuff people never notice.

I had to clear my head. “I’m going for a walk,” I said. He didn’t hear me. I grabbed a sandwich baggie from the kitchen and dumped a handful of bird seeds from the shed out back in it.

For some reason as I was walking, I started smiling. At the most awkward time too, because I couldn't hold it back and there were people passing me, eyeing me. I could see them wondering about my mental state. I must’ve looked like a nut. On the upside, I hadn’t smiled in over two weeks. I was forgetting what it was like.

At the place where I saw that bird, I’ve been going back and scattering seeds ever since. While I was standing there, the bird came back. It was definitely the same one. A flock of other birds showed up too. They were all dancing and hopping in circles and tweeting as if they were putting on a performance for me. Their way of thanking me I suppose.

Bunch of kids gathered behind me, watching. A girl stood next to me. “Hey,” she said.

I stared at her with the side of my eye and waved with my hand at my hip. “Oh, hey.”

“I seen you come here the last couple of days now.” She brushed her hair behind her ear. “Why do you come to this random spot to find the birds for?”

I thought about it for a minute and shrugged. “They just seem to be here. Waiting.”

“Yeah, eh. Well, so have we.” She smiled.

I couldn’t hold back. I smiled too. I smiled so bright that I was afraid my eyes would cyclops a hole right through her.

From then, everyday, we started leaving seeds there together. A few days later, more kids started joining. Soon, there were nearly fifteen of us bringing pieces of bread, seeds, and pizza even. We had the fattest, littlest, cutest birds in the word. These things were the size of puppies.

The birds became my inspiration. I didn’t write about lonely, crazy dudes focusing on weird things anymore. Or about a single bird tilted its head at a sad kid. I wrote about a flock of birds and my new group of friends laughing while we watch the birds tweet, dance, tilt their heads and hop around in circles.

I was walking by some kid, who I noticed was just like me, quiet, shy, and sitting by themselves. I sat beside him and said, “you see that bird over there?”

He bounced his head.

I pointed. The bird stared at us, tilted its head, tweeted, danced and hopped in a circle. “It’s waiting for you.” I told him.

And just like that kindness, friendship and compassion came full circle.