Yara and the Morning Mosaic

Every Saturday morning, a bird of colored light rested on the community room’s white wall. Yara had helped make it from overlapping transparent shapes in four removable window panels. Its wings were green, its tail blue, and a little golden triangle sat below its beak. This Saturday, the wings had turned yellow. The triangle was higher up. No paint had fallen from the wall; the bird was made entirely of light.

Oren set down the board game they had brought. ‘Maybe the cloud outside stole the blue.’ Yara looked at the window. The sky was clear now. Salma, who cared for the room, let them inspect the panels from the low bench beside her. All four frames were there. They wrote down what had changed before deciding why.