For the Birds

My current girlfriend and I traveled to visit my parent's last weekend for Easter. She hates when I call her 'my current girlfriend,' but I like to think it gives her a note of ambiguity.
The sun was setting when we arrived at their country home. Clouds turned pink. The sky switched sides on the spectrum until the clouds turned to a misty gray. In the garage my old faithful dog, Katie, lay sprawled out on the cool concrete floor. It had been brought to my attention that over the years Katie had developed a severe case of arthritis. No longer could my childhood companion bound through the grass after jackrabbits or chase me around our acre of grass, seeing who was faster. She let out a sigh, as I approached. Perhaps the best she could do to say 'hello.' I knelt down to pet her, finding the exact place on her belly that made her hind legs do a sideways-gallop. Her eyes followed me as I got up to go inside, flicking off the garage light as I closed the door behind me.
Though Katie suffers from acute arthritis this has not seemed to impact her appetite one bit. Startling at first, my sister has warmly bestowed upon her the nickname of "Katie-Seal" since the two had first met. Since giving up the daily routine of walking around the property, Katie has gotten larger and larger; requiring us to loosen the notch on her collar a handful of times. She sits down in front of me, the weight on her shoulders forces her to lean slightly to one side. I loosen her collar again for added comfort, she's not trying to escape.
There is a marsh outside the window of my current apartment. Birds of all kinds share its waters and its food. Humans share the view, along with the path that runs through it. While walking along this exact path earlier today, I came across an alien breed of sandpiper. Sandpipers can be distinguished by their needle-like beaks which they stab into the sands along a water's shores, probing for their next wiggling snack. The specific bird that I spotted had a fiery orange head.
If I were this sandpiper, I would have gotten used to the taste of sand by now. It's not that it was particularly bad at what it did, it was the fact that this bird let its mouth hang, partially open, as it dove its tool into the buffet. The orange alien retracted its head violently, shaking it forward and backward with such force that any heavy, non-snacky particles would jettison loose. This is a gold digger's trick. If the sand weren't as malleable as it were I would suspect that these birds would quickly pace their beak-diving expeditions.
With their mechanical engines, the planes overhead butt into the conversation. How it is that a large, hunk of steel manages to stay afloat while a penguin cannot I can't tell. Something about bones. Something about propulsion. Flight is a gift reserved for the evolutionary elect and those with enough paper money to ward off gravity. "Flight" can be replaced with any number of words.
The planes' tiny reflection out swims the ducks. Reflection and real thing soar unhindered through the blue. What it must be like to be free, floating alongside the birds.