if i were katherine mansfield

20050702

Bird's Last Minutes

I arrived home late tonight. As I turned into my house, I heard, from the sidewalk further down, kicking sounds and sounds of feathers, struggling. On the sidewalk was a bird's body, kicking and flapping against the cement. Its body was under the shadow of a tree where the orange lamplight didn't reach. I took a few steps towards it. The bird's strange position scared me. At first I thought it was on its back, flipped over, perheps hit by a car and managed to drag itself to the sidewalk. But then a closer look revealed that it was on its stomach, with its bare legs kicking painfully under flapping wings. It flapped and flapped, relentlessly, in an odd rhythm that was no rhythm. It was sheer panic. Its head I couldn't see. I was scared. I wanted to do something but I was scared about moving the bird in its strange position with its head invisible in the darkness. I was afraid it might attack me. I was afraid I might see a stretch or tear of a delicate section of its body. As I walked closer, I saw that its beak might be stuck in the cracks of the sidewalk. I rolled up the newspaper, approached it from behind, tried to retain from my squeamishness as much compassion as I could, motioned to give it the lift it might need to fly away. At that moment it stopped kicking, its wings stopped. The plump wings covered the tiny muscle, feathers neatly in place, a complete bird body in the middle of the sidewalk. I still couldn't see its head. It never occurred to me that a bird could end up like that, with its head stuck in the ground. It was a painful, most helpless way to die. What was going through its head while I was hesitating for a good five minutes with the roll of newspaper in my hand?

1 Comments:

  • You're writing style is unique.

    I shouldn't have read this post. I should have listened to myself and stopped when I knew I should. Now I will dream of this bird, and wake up wishing I possessed the minuscule amount of self control it would have taken to simply stop reading.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 10:14 AM  

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