Cold Little Bird

Pantelis Peter Roumanis
2022-08-11

A 10-year-old boy doesn't love his parents. So they take him to see a therapist.
10
15 min

Martin and Rachel are tucking in their ten-year-old son, Jonah when the boy refuses their hugs or kisses. Humoring their kid and thinking it's just a phase or a way of "testing" them, the parents give Jonah some space, instead lavishing their affection on their younger boy, Lester. But from that night forward, Jonah seems to have changed his personality. Previously affectionate and childlike, he's now formal, cold and disdainful of affection -- he's become a grown-up in temperament, though at school and with his brother, he still seems very much like a child. The change in Jonah's behavior towards his parents vexes Martin, and it also exposes the chasms between him and his wife. Despite professional intervention (which finds no signs of mental illness in Jonah), Martin is bewildered at Jonah's rejection of his love and must come to terms with the uniqueness of his child and perhaps his own emotional needs.