I have an office on campus in an olde worlde red brick building with a great sweep of manicured garden before it. Yesterday, as I left the building on the pretext of going to the library, but really just to stop looking at an article I hate, I noticed a woman feeding a magpie lark on the lawn. The magpie lark would take something from the woman's hand then trot over to a baby magpie lark some metres away, a screeching ball of fluff and newly sprouted flight feathers scarcely visible in the grass. The adult would feed the baby, then trot back over to the woman with the proprietorial air some birds have.

As I came and went well into the night I kept noticing the magpie lark and her baby, and it was always the same. The baby would sit in the grass and squawk and beat its stiff baby wings, and the mother would ignore it and go about important bird business, and I wanted to go over and investigate the baby bird and the magpie lark, but I didn't, because taking an interest in baby birds is immature.

.....

I have only a few hours today, a paper that must be finished in order to preserve my sanity, and my body is clenched is knotted and aching from carrying too many things and walking around too much, and wearing inappropriate shoes. It's raining. Most everyone is gone for the holidays and I have the office to myself, which is good. Last night it was so hot I didn't even bother wearing pants in the office, which is a benefit of everyone going away for a holiday I will not have. Today I am serious. Wake up, I say to the paper. Time to die.

When the alarm starts I'd written a whole entire paragraph without stopping to check Facebook or Ebay or I Can Has Cheezburger or my email or looking up another paper or deciding to get a cup of coffee or tidying my desk or calling my mum, which is something of an achievement. I'm listening to Talking Heads and have both feet on the table, either side of my computer, to ease the whiteknuckle tension in my neck. It's not until someone knocks on the door that I realise the alarm is going off in this building, not some other one. 'You've got to go,' says the woman in the 'warden' hardhat. 'The alarm's going off. Forget your computer, it's an emergency.'

There aren't many people on the lawn outside, because most people have gone on holiday, and aside from the man who is meant to fix the broken light bulb in my room, but hasn't, I haven't met anyone before. Three fire trucks go past and someone makes a comment about how much this will cost. The magpie lark is browsing through the lawn, and I am holding my computer to my chest as I'm not good at following instructions. I'm pissed. Who knows when I'll ever find that kind of focus again? I consider starting a conversation with someone, how about this heat etc, but no one else is holding a computer or anything, and this makes me feel foolish for some reason. Fuck it, I think. Immature or not, I'm going to go find that baby bird.

The baby magpie lark is half grown and squawking, with traces of yellow membrane in the corners of its beak. It has a straggly, damp, fully fledged tail and fledged wings, but the rest is baby fluff. I expect the adult to notice me approaching her baby and get defensive, like a hissing mother duck, but the adult magpie lark is indifferent and so is the baby. The baby looks me in the eye. 'Scraaaaarp,' he says, unimpressed. 'I know how you feel,' I would have replied, if talking to a baby bird wasn't crazy behaviour. The adult is in a tree, looking down on the pair of us. 'Skweeeep,' she says, and goes on with her business.

It didn't take the firefighters long to switch off the alarm, and now I am back in the office, shoes kicked off, feet on the desk, writing about a baby bird and a fire alarm. I am unfocused and envious, dreaming of blue skies and a wide green lawn, the grass beneath my feet, someone bringing me food whenever I screech.