I hear the birds chirping at 6 AM the same time of the morning my roommate Phil and I brewed a pot of coffee and chain smoked cigarettes. Phil turned it into a program on the animal planet, describing the chirps and which types of birds they were coming from, and noticing the subtle changes in the formation of the clouds. He and I argued about music. One time we agreed that Michael MacDonald ruined the Doobie Brothers but when I came back with a third cup of joe, he was jamming to What a Fool Believes and I said what the fuck, Phil? He said he couldn’t help it, MacDonald or no, it was a good tune. Then it would become time for me to shower and head to my treatment program and for Phil to either nap or go on a fat kid snack cake shopping spree at the dollar store, as he called it. He lost his job at the golf course, but still planned to slap the ball around, and with a year on the streets behind him he was not about to let it get him down. Now I hear the birds chirping, but no Phil or his signature cigarette perched on his lips, marveling at the simple pleasures of the world and making the wind laugh at us when it blew our cheap haircuts into sight gags. He’s not here right now as I drink coffee and smoke an extra cigarette for him, and I pay attention to the birds, the clouds and the tickle of the wings on Phil’s favorite local hummingbird, all of us still here after his abrupt big sleep blew him away from us to a different place people argue over in warfare, the complicated nothingness of what a fool believe to be eternal paradise, but that paradise was right here at this back porch table where we talked about the promise of a new life. ***