I’m walking home when I see it. So much happens when I’m walking home. I’m a pedestrian of necessity, and so walking is when I notice things, think of things. It’s on the ground by my right foot, I must be lost in thought, I don’t see it coming. A baby bird, dead on its back, beak to the sky, tiny eyes closed. Some if not all baby birds are born without feathers, or at least not the kind of feathers you think of when you think of birds. They have these little clear spines that come down from their wings where their feathers will grow, and pink skin. I know because I’ve seen this very thing once before, walking home from where the bus dropped me off as a child, a bird had built its nest on the streetlight and a baby bird was dead beneath it. At the time I was in the seventh grade and either felt so moved by it or wanted to feel so moved by it that I decided to bury the thing, carefully, without touching it. I think I was just at that age where you do things like that, dramatic acts, because you want to be the type of person who does them.
And today here it is again, and I’m not going to bury it, but I stop, and look around as though to say, does anyone see this? And then move on, go home.
Later I’m walking home again, and this time it’s dark, and as I walk up the hill I remember the bird, remember that I will have to walk past it again. My stomach tightens and my eyes are scanning the ground for it as I walk, I can’t quite remember the place where it was. It’s so dark out that it’s hard to make out what I’m seeing, and my hands start to make fists which then squeeze tightly as they would if I had a hand in mine to squeeze. Every leaf and twisted vine looks like young innocent death. The first time was a shock but this second time I see it ten times, twenty times, before I see it truly. The second time is by far worse.
You are one of the most incredible writers. I still let your blogs build up so that I may treat myself. I needed to read this today. Thank you.