Story of Teen – Some Dead Bird I’m Writing About
Photo credit: mnp from morguefile.com
Lacking a social life, I often made tiny experiences seem like giant, life-changing moments in my mind. Outside was a place charted in the emptiness of my mind as dangerous territory, a force to be reckoned with. My perception of outside was a traitor, a backstabbing liar, who was always trying to hurt its nemesis, Inside. This is why my mom was always yelling at me, and this is why I remember the day of the bird, as I remember it by, so clearly.
I woke up cursing myself. I desperately dug deep into the darkness of my mind to try to fall back asleep. The dream I had experienced was far greater than the cruel, cold continuing misfortunes we’ve learned to call reality. I let out a far greater amount of air than usual from a far greater inhale than usual as I made the unfortunate decision to start the day. The dream I had would be forever engraved in my mind, a fantasy I would come to love far greater than any book in the library at the school I attended. After several minutes of silence and trying to recall the dream exactly, I added the dream to my collection of wishes and relieved my bed of the weight it had been burdened with for eight consecutive hours.
Summer days for me were in no way, shape, or form normal. Most people my age went to that horrible place beyond the door of their home during their fuel stop on the long road of knowledge. My ideal summer day consisted of me leaving the world for hours on end with the help of digital entertainment systems.
Skyrim was on my computer screen, and my hands were nimbly moving with the fast-paced rhythm of the game. My hands were an entire orchestra, the game the conductor, the programmers the composers; the game and I were one, so I got pretty mad when my mom was yelling from the other room at me to go outside. My eyes moved toward the direction my mother’s wretched voice came from, and noticed the light in the hallway was casting its brilliance into my room. I let the light have the honor of reflecting off of my middle finger nail, perched as high and proud as I could make it from the prison of my hand, exclusively that finger nail, and got up from my chair.
It was indeed silly and unnecessary to curse at my mother’s voice with my hand. She never saw it, she won’t ever see it, and for her to see it would send her into a rage that would leave God himself cowering in fear, holy tears running down his face, racing to the finish line that is his chin, only to fall from the heavens and appear as a thunderstorm, all because my mom saw me flip her off. I was in no way and am still in no way religious, and this possibility still scared me. Now, obviously I didn’t want to have to deal with rain when I went outside, so I let out a stereotypical, fourteen-year-old-son sigh and eroded the legs of my chair into my carpet until the chair’s brain touched the edge of my desk.
As I walked into the kitchen, which was where the door lived, I noticed my mom was viciously murdering a collection of potatoes with the intense heat of our oven.
“You’ve been on that thing all day,” my mother told me. “Join the rest of us for a while. I want you to go outside for at least half an hour.”
“I’ll go for a walk,” I replied. Most of the time when I said this, I really meant taking a hand held video game with me to the train tracks that lived nearby for however amount of time my mother wanted me away. This time, however, I decided I would be a decent human being and actually be honest. I left through the door and into the place where my mother’s car had resided and slipped on my shoes.
I’m often alone to my thoughts, and whenever I go on these short adventures, I always think about the most out of place concepts. Politics, religion, and most of the time, girls I liked.
To say the girl I had a crush on was gorgeous would be an understatement. Aphrodite would be envious if she saw her. She had the beauty to rival anything in the universe. When I looked into her mesmerizing eyes, I could see the rivalry between her pupils and the beauty of the everlasting blackness of space, the beauty of her jungle green irises rivaled the beauty of the Pillars of Creation. The beauty of strawberry blonde hair rivaled the beauty of rays of sunshine, and was more tempting to stare at than a sunset. Her personality rivaled the uniqueness of our planet; two with these conditions were light years apart. She didn’t try to be like every other girl at our school, with the most expensive phone available, legs constricted by yoga pants daily, Uggs hugging her feet. To compare her appearance to mine felt like driving a dagger through my gut, and to think about the chances of her being in any way at all interested in me felt like forcing the dagger through my organs. I longed for the nerves of my lips to dance with hers, for I had never, and still haven’t to this day, kissed a girl.
I was thinking of her when I neared a crosswalk. There was a baby bird in the middle of it, cheeping repeatedly. It’s head was on the ground, neck stretched on the asphalt, awkwardly running in circles and flapping its wings, clearly attempting to achieve liftoff. I made my way closer to the bird, and it didn’t make an attempt to hop away. As I bent over, I heard the squawks and screeches of the nest the baby bird had left the safety of.
I picked up the bird, aware of the fact that birds touched by the foulness that we call the human race aren’t accepted back into the nest. I was also aware of the diseases birds carry that could be so deadly to us because we no longer have a place in nature, and our immunities to its diseases are almost all but nonexistent.
As I made my way back home, I thought of going to a pet store to ask for two birds in the bush in exchange for the one I had in hand. I felt the device that was hiding in my pocket vibrate. As I pulled it out, I read that it was my mother, and pondered answering it. I pushed the “Talk” button after a few rings.
“Hi Kieran. Where are you? We’re going to be eating dinner soon.”
“I’m near Sacred Hearts. I may or may not have a bird. It didn’t try to run away from me, so I think there’s something wrong. Can we take care of it?”
After a short pause, my mom said, “Maybe. Do you even know what birds eat?”
“Their mother’s puke. Thanks for not raising me that way, by the way. Can we feed it applesauce, since it probably can’t chew?”
“It won’t want applesauce. There’s, like, gross sugar and non-natural stuff in there. Birds won’t eat it.”
“Maybe the bird will learn to thrive off of processed crap. It is in America, after all.”
My mother laughed and told me to walk home. I agreed and started toward my house, feet aching. I knew my mom probably wouldn’t want the burden of the crippled creature I held in my hand. I was already considering it myself by the time I had gotten home, for it head decided toilets weren’t necessary while in my hand twice.
As I neared my open garage, I noticed my stepfather working our grill in our driveway.
“Did you seriously bring that thing home?” my stepfather said as he shook his head with a stupid smile on his face.
“Yeah,” I replied, showing him the bird.
He chuckled as he opened the door to bring some grilled venison into our kitchen. I knew from my stepfather’s reaction that my mom wouldn’t allow us to keep the bird. I unfilled my shoes and entered my house, with the bird still walking about in my hand. My mother saw me and immediately told me to stay outside. We both walked out together into our driveway.
“Let me see him,” my mother told me.
I put the bird in her outstretched hand. The bird immediately jumped out of her hand, flapping its wings furiously as if trying air condition the entire earth, and spiraled headfirst into our lawn. It then started running in circles, seemingly trying to pierce itself against the green, unsharpened needles that were our grass.
“His neck is broken. To heal it would require a chiropractor,” my mother diagnosed.
“We can’t just keep him until he gets better?” I asked.
“Kieran, his neck won’t heal. The most humane thing to do would be to let him go peacefully in the woods.”
Tears stung my eyes, which were blinked back immediately. I scolded myself for crying over some bird. Was I really that big of a wimp? I couldn’t contain my emotions enough for a stupid animal, whose life is next to meaningless? What impact could the bird possibly have on anyone?
In a shaky voice I said,”Fine. I’ll bring it to the woods.”
This bird was in my debt from the time I found it. It was so deep in debt that it had ceased to exist before it could pay me back. I could no longer support it, its red blood would be under the blue sky of the area above the woods near my white house, with its legacy being only thoughts of what it could have been.
I neared the string of trees my mom had referred to as the woods. I freed the bird from the horrifying heights of my hand for such a small, flightless creature, and into the grass. I fought back tears as I turned and walked in the opposite direction. The rest of the afternoon was a blur to me, just a few images of the bird and my dinner, which was grilled venison. I fell asleep thinking about the bird, and it was still on my mind the next day.
The next day was school registration. I entered my school, feeling pretty bummed out about the bird, when my mood was changed instantly by the sight of the girl I had a crush on. She saw me and walked over. My parents were writing their names on a piece of paper I didn’t care about, and hers were doing the same. We had already been friends to some small extent, and I guess she wanted to talk.
“Hi!” she said cheerfully. I did my best to not let my voice crack or shake when I replied.
“Hey. This s**ks. This whole school thing.”
“Yeah, I know… So what’s up?”
I told her what had happened the night before, and her eyes widened.
“Awwwww… That’s so… sweet.”
I felt my cheeks blush as I said,” It was nothing, really. Just some bird.”
She giggled and said she disagreed. She took my hand and led me outside. I wondered what she was doing when we left the school. When she found a place where no one could see us, she put her arms around me. She pressed her lips against mine, and my ears felt hot. I felt the adrenaline course through my veins and my heart rate increase. She truly was like Aphrodite, and I truly was like Hephaestus. Everything was perfect and I felt as though I was dreaming. Suspiciously like I was dreaming. Too much like I was dreaming.
The world started to fade quickly. Blackness swept over the sky, through the grass, and eventually took over her face. The brick wall I had been leaned up against transformed into a soft, cottony mattress. The sun transformed into a red ball of light shining through my thin eyelids, presumably from the lamp my brother had forgotten to turn off the night before. The ground beneath my feet was lifted, and I laid down on the soft brick wall. Instead of seeing my crush’s face inches away from my face, it was replaced by the deep darkness of my eyelids. She herself transformed into a pile of blankets wrapped in my arms, and her warmth stayed with me.
I woke up cursing myself. I desperately dug deep into the darkness of my mind to try to fall back asleep. The dream I had experienced was far greater than the cruel, cold continuing misfortunes we’ve learned to call reality. I let out a far greater amount of air than usual from a far greater inhale than usual as I made the unfortunate decision to start the day. The dream I had would be forever engraved in my mind, a fantasy I would come to love far greater than any book in the library at the school I attended. After several minutes of silence and trying to recall the dream exactly, I added the dream to my collection of wishes and relieved my bed of the weight it had been burdened with for eight consecutive hours.
__END__
