Poor Dead Bird

A bird flew into the window.  A closed, double-pane window.  It made the sound of a wet sponge being dropping on cold tile.  I put down my drink and walked to the window.  It didn’t look good.  A football shaped smudge on the window, with a tiny bird eyeball staring at me.  I leaned in and looked down.  It was bad.  There were feathers on the ground.  The bird was in a heap with its feet up.

I went back to the desk.  Took another sip of my drink, then walked to the broom closet and reached for the dustpan.  I went out the back door and walked around the house.  The grass was long around the side.  I neglected gardening work.  I neglected most work.  I picked my feet up and climbed through the tall grass.   Foxtails and thorns dug into me.  I got through the worst of it and made my way to the crime scene.

There was no hope.  The legs were still up in the air like twist-ties on an empty loaf of bread.  I stood over it, not knowing what to do.  I didn’t know the bird, species or anything.  If I were to say something, a prayer of sorts, who would I address it to?  I didn’t believe in god and I didn’t know if birds partook in that type of thing.  I closed my eyes and let the dustpan hang at my side.

I didn’t think anything, except “poor dead bird.”  I felt a little sorry for it, but mostly I recognized the misfortune.  The little eyeball was still stuck to the window, hanging there by a thread, a sinewy vein.  I nudged it with the handle end of the broom.  It stuck on the stick like a booger.  Then I rubbed the end of the broom down on the ground near the corpse.  A wispy gray feather stuck to it.  I continued to wipe until they both let go.  At least everything was together now.  The bird, the feathers, both of its eyes.

I put the dustpan down and nudged the poor dead bird onto it.  It rolled like a flat tire.  Thump.  Right to its side.  The good eye was facing up.  It winked.  I leaned over and examined it. Maybe there was hope.  Not for the missing eye.  But the bigger picture.  I blew on it lightly, the way you’d blow on hot food for a child.  I don’t know if this had any effect.  At the moment, it was the only thing I knew to do.

The eye blinked again.  Then it closed and stayed that way.  I thought it was a goner.  I stopped blowing.  The little eye flicked open again.  So I began pushing my breath on it, gently.  “Come on poor dead bird.  Don’t die.  You can make it.”  Its twist-tie legs kicked and folded like a cramp.  It wasn’t looking good again.

The bird wiggled.  The tail feathers fanned out.  It looked grim.  Most of them weren’t in order.  More fell out as it moved.  I was still breathing on it, unconsciously.  The bird made it all the way to its stomach.  It turned to look at me with the bad eye.  There was a hole there with a bit of gravel and dust in it.  I didn’t have the tools clean an animal wound.

It turned and looked at me with the other eye.  Then it hopped.  It was a painful little hop, landed back on its side.  The legs kicked with more power.  I was becoming more optimistic.  I took a step back to give it room.  Maybe it was frightened seeing me with its remaining eye.  Or maybe it assumed I was the one who knocked it out of the sky.  “It wasn’t me poor dead bird.  It was the window.  My stupid window.  You flew right into it.  I should be more careful.  I should put something up so it doesn’t happen again.”

It didn’t understand me.  I didn’t expect it to.  But it was back on its feet again.  It looked to be getting ready for another attempt at flight.  I watched.  It got off the ground and flapped ferociously.  More feathers wafted down.  It bounced a few feet away and was right back in the air.  The flightpath wasn’t strong.  One wing was tilted up like an airplane preparing to land.  It hooked to the right, dipped, and went back to the left.  It was making progress.  Gaining altitude.  Flapping like hell.  The poor dead bird wasn’t dead after all.

It flew in that drunken pattern until it was up near the trees.  I lost it in the branches.  I was hopeful.  It was a survivor.

I swept the loose feathers onto the dustpan and nudged the little eyeball on with them.  I walked back around the house, through the overgrown grass, and dumped the whole thing in the garbage.  Before I sat back down, I closed the blinds.