Rosa Wright 10SW

Of Birds and Bus Stops

I contemplated death on the way home from school. Or rather, I contemplated life and its fragility; on how it can suddenly be snuffed out, like a flickery flame blown away by death’s clammy gasp.

It was all because of that bird.

I was walking home from school, letting my neurosis take over as I carefully counted my steps, making my next step with my right food stretch to balance out the long step my left had taken to avoid a grate. It left my feet uneven. The paths leave their imprint in my feet with every crack I step on, every uneven strip of tarmac, every paving tile overstepped. But only when I think about it.

Suddenly, a little black bundle on the road in front of the bus shelter caught my eye, pushing my neurosis out of my head. I forgot the cracks and walked along the tiny, uneven span of path to get a closer look, and the bundle became a bird. It was dead, laying with its left side facing up. Its little legs were crooked, as if it had landed on some invisible branch sticking out of the kerb. Its body had lost its clean, glossy shine; the inky-black feathers no longer caught the sun but a dull film spread over each one of them, as if all the light had been sucked out of that little bird’s body, along with its life.

The thing that made the most impact on me was the shrivelled, empty eye socket. I could only see one because of how it lay, but I thought of how the once bright eye must have dried up, turned to dust by the April sun. It was a greyish colour, with a sort of crust covering the inward facing dome. I was almost glad that the sockets were empty; I didn’t want the poor thing seeing me gawp at it. I’m sure that if it were me in that position, I wouldn’t want to be stared at.

Though how would it know? Depends on what you believe, I suppose, and as for me, I don’t really believe in anything. I’d like to believe in reincarnation, it’s nice to think that this might not be our only shot at life, and the ‘souls’ we’ve spent a lifetime creating aren’t wasted on nothingness.

Heaven and Hell don’t appeal to me. I can’t see our ‘merciful God’ eternally judging us, damning us as he checks our paperwork to find we haven’t lived a ‘good’ enough life. Of course we haven’t: we’re human. Sin is variable in its damage, and I don’t think anything, even a supreme being, could make such a definite, ever-lasting decision based on our mistakes, big or small.

I think about whether the bird saw it coming or not. How it happens intrigues me, but I daren’t pick it up. The prospect of the gore that could be hidden on the other side isn’t encouraging, seeing the miniature insides of a bird doesn’t appeal to me. But it doesn’t matter how it happened or where I put it; it’ll still be dead.

I regard it sadly, still agonising whether I should move it or not. I decide to leave it in peace and continue my journey home. I begin to count the cracks again, but not once does the bird leave my mind until I get inside.

Cut to the evening. I’m by a bus shelter again, but at a different time, in a different place, and I’m thinking about life again but in a totally different way. I’m awash with the sweaty euphoria of the mosh pit I was previously part of, and I have the arms of a strange, but evidently friendly boy wrapped around me. Life suddenly isn’t so fragile, it is pulsating with strength and vitality. My flame is nowhere near ready to consider being snuffed out yet. I feel so very much alive after kissing a stranger, after singing on the darkened street with my deranged friends, and dancing to the music only I can hear.

But the bird’s still dead.