To Live Forever

I came home from work on a Thursday evening to find, of all things, a small baby sparrow, barely able to keep its eyes open and clearly unable to fly, hopping along the wall beneath the window of my apartment as it chirped constantly, pleading for help. At first, I looked around for a hidden nest, surprised that there might be one nearby as I had not noticed any fowl activity around the building in recent days or even weeks. Not surprisingly, I did not find a nest, nor did I see any parents nearby looking down upon the fallen hatchling.

My next instinct was to pick up the young bird and move it to a safer location, especially to somewhere where it would be less likely to hurt itself. It was with great pity that I watched the small sparrow hop along the wall beneath my window, practically throwing itself into the immovable object while gaining at most a half-centimeter of altitude as it instinctively attempted to fly. But flight was clearly not possible, not yet, and my brain stopped me from acting upon my instinct, reasoning that if the parent birds were to come back and somehow assist the youngling, they would immediately reject their offspring if they smelled my scent upon its small feathery body.

For several moments, I simply watched and listened, uncertain of what I could do to assist the young sparrow. Then I was even more surprised, for I had never before heard of a wild bird being born in August, not even in a generally warm winter climate like in southern Arizona.

Perhaps that was "reason enough" for the parents to reject this hatchling. Perhaps they (instinctively?) assumed that the young bird would not survive the first winter even if they were able to somehow provide assistance.

Or, I thought, perhaps the nest was simply too far away, and the young sparrow would not survive the return trip to the nest. Then again, assuming that sparrows do not build their nests on the ground, how would the parents be able to lift the hatchling up to the nest?

Knowing that I would be responsible for the young bird's imminent and untimely death if I touched it, I left the sparrow alone. I watched for a few more seconds, my heart torn as I watched the hatchling practically beat itself to death against the white wall. What made the situation even more pitiful was the near-constant chirping, a sound I typically enjoy hearing.

...but not given this particular situation.

At last, I unlocked and opened the door and stepped into my apartment. Even with the door closed and locked, even with the air conditioning unit turned on, I could still hear the soft near-incessant chirping. It took several hours of watching the latest news of the Middle East conflict to finally wipe the young sparrow from my mind.

Yet that night, after I stepped from the shower, with the A/C off and the window open, I could hear those chirps yet again, those soft calls for help. Those were the last things I heard as I fell asleep...

*****

By morning, I had fortunately "forgotten" about the young bird. My dreams still flooded my mind even though I was fully awake. Turning on CNN, the news of the East Coast heat wave filtered into my mind to chase away the dreams, and I slowly went on with my morning, fixing and eating breakfast before finally preparing to go to the office.

When I opened the door to leave my apartment, however, my heart practically seized, for about a foot away from the door, the small sparrow lay on its side, inert.

No motion.

No sound.

No life.

I paused for a moment, contemplating the unfortunate vision before me. But my sense of duty urged me to hurry to the bus stop to go to work, and as I turned my back on the young fowl, I hoped that the building manager would come across the young sparrow during the day and take it away.

*****

I returned from the office in a fairly good mood, sorting through the mail I had received as I walked toward my apartment until, to my dismay, I saw it.

The lifeless sparrow was still there, in the same position.

Again, I struggled over what to do in this situation. A few moments later, I stepped into my apartment and closed and locked the door.

I definitely felt no desire to cook, yet since I had not eaten lunch due to the non-stop reports and conference calls and training sessions at work, I decided to order pizza. It was only after the order had been placed, however, that I realized that I had no choice but to remove the bird from in front of my apartment, and it needed to be done before dinner was delivered.

Living in the middle of a city, there was no place nearby where I could properly bury the young sparrow. I wondered what I could possibly do which was proper in this situation.

In the end, I realized that simply taking the time to remove the lifeless bird and recognize its existence would be a better treatment than it had probably received in life... even from me.

In the closet, I found an empty cardboard box. I ripped off one of the flaps, then went outside. Kneeling before the inert bird, I wondered what its life could have been like, but found that to be too depressing. Carefully, I slid the flap underneath the bird, too keenly aware of the lack of reaction, and placed the bird and the flap into the box. Closing the box, I took a short yet long walk to the big trash dumpster, the only place I could possibly take the sparrow, and threw the box away like any other piece of trash.

The walk back to my apartment was even longer, and I hoped that I had done the right thing by essentially throwing the young bird away.

Almost certainly, I am the only human who ever "knew" this young sparrow. But now, at least through words, the young bird may live forever.