ESSAYS OF MUNDANE I: Bird on the cable-web

I met a bird today, though I forgot to catch its name and kind. And I can not tell it on my own, for I’m a man with no mind. It was not a kid, probably an adult– like a bird-adult, yet it looked fragile. I stood there with a cigarette in my hand, gazing at that poor creature trotting on the cable-web near the electric pole. It chirped, and I was full of agony when I felt paralysed trying to comprehend what it was saying. Was it singing, screaming, or maybe crying— it can be anything. Its body language puzzled me to the extent that I forgot the cigarette in my hand while locking my sight on it. So thank you for the tiny burn on my thumb, birdy. I will keep it as a souvenir for as long as my body allows a bruise.

I stood there and watched her. I don’t know how they define genders in birds (for I’m a man with no mind), but my heart calls it her every single time, so I will just go with it. She might have gotten away from her flock, did not know the way back home, and was crying for help from someone of her kind. Or it might be that she went to get food but returned to the ruins of the tiny world she had created for her kids. And it might as well be the case that she was singing some kind of ballad– of course, a bird-ballad, and I just lack the ears for bird-music. When you think about it, bird-ballads would be one hell of a thing to enjoy; they have seen so much more than I have. The horizon, the ocean, so many rivers and forests, and me, she had seen me, something I could never.

Dawn has woken up again while I’m writing this, and all day long, I could not get her out of my mind, and my soul. Where is she now? What might be happening with her? Did she finally reunite with the rest of her kind? Did she finally find her kids stranded on some wire-web or some pigeon’s nest? Or did she finish her bird-ballad and swim in the sky with her delicate wings, creating new bird-ballads, maybe an ode… and ode on cable-web? Did she notice me? If she did, would she remember me? What will she tell her peers, kids, and other bird-artists about a man who watched her creepingly while the fire in his cigarette had to wake him up from a daydream? Was she a she or a he? Heck, I don’t even know if it was the type of bird that flies in flocks or a bird-mother or a bird-ballad-singer. I don’t know any of that, and I can not tell anything on my own, for I am a man with no mind.

Wherever you are, bird, I hope you are happy. I hope you are dead. I hope you do not have to worry about getting away from the flock or chasing skies and monsters way bigger than you to feed the kids who will fly away from you and your nest the second their wings get some pride. I hope your beak is closed now, and your throat doesn’t have to make a sound. I hope your ballad had an ending that satisfied the artist in you. I hope all of that, I hope the best for you, I hope death for you. In return, when you fly away from my soul to wherever bird-heaven is, can you please return my peace? I need it.