A bird or something flew right smack dab into the big window in the living room. My mother let out a little shriek and I went outside to see. It was a little bird, lying behind the rose bushes. It looked like it was dead but it still seemed to be breathing so I ran back inside and found a little shoe box, put some toilet paper in it and then went back outside. The bird hadn’t moved. I covered it in toilet paper so I didn’t give it my scent. I’d read somewhere that if a bird has the scent of a human on it it would be shunned or killed by the other birds. Doesn’t make much sense now that I think about it, maybe that was just something adults told us so we weren’t handling wild animals. Anyway, I picked up this little bird and placed it gently in the shoe box. I put the box in my room and drew the shade. I came in a few times during the day to check on it and to leave it some water and seeds and fruit. When I went to bed the bird opened its eyes and began whisper to me.
Bright secrets about the things that no one knew about. How if you listen real close you can hear the stars singing old Animal Collective songs and how Hitler had actually been a robot made by the sun gods to keep us in line. Also how all little birds are all incorrigible drunks. Thankfully birds are so little it only takes a thimble full of whiskey to get them hammered. The Professor, that was my little birds name, well his full name was Professor Nigel Kendricks, but I always called him Professor or sometimes Nigel if I was overcome by drink and being sentimental. Well, the professor only drank half a fifth of Chivas the whole time he was here. And some nights he’d get tore up, singing about the old country, and when he first learned to fly. How he’d lost his wife and was all alone now… and then he’d get sad and fly around the house banging into shit until I’d open a window. He’d fly off to God knows where but he’d always be back in the morning, passed out on the front stoop. Then one morning the neighbors cat got him and that was that. Luckily he was out cold and hopefully didn’t feel a thing. So yeah, I guess I miss him sometimes, he was a good bird.
