Black Duck

Yesterday I saw a bird die. A small, black duck--to be specific. I was walking across a parking lot near my house and I heard a "thunk" and then something landed on the ground. My first thought was that it was a shoe. I know, I know--my intelligence and perception is just awe-inspiring. At any rate, as I got closer, I realized what it was. It had flown right into a lamppost in the middle of the parking lot. And I was stunned. I stood there, three feet from it and I could not move. It's hard to define how I felt. For a few moments it writhed. It's long, slender neck bent back and flailed in a way that looked both unnatural and like it was surrendering to a pain that was excruciating and so unexpected. After it's head fell limp, it lifted its right wing, carefully, and extended it only slightly. The sound of it hitting the post had been so loud--it was so clear that impact had been strong. I thought of a poem I read recently in my writing poetry class. The speaker of the poem is holding a bird in her hand that has just died, it's still warm. And the speaker carefully lifts each wing and describes the bird. Then a car comes toward the speaker and she ashamedly puts the bird down--embarrassed to be caught holding it. I could not fathom holding that black duck in my hand. I was scared of it. Frightened that it would lash out at me in a final act of desperation. Frightened by the torturous pain I had witnessed it going through.

I don't know why--but the image of that writhing bird is sitting in my mind, perched and waiting to expand its wings over my thoughts. I don't like to think about it. I've been avoiding walking past it. Someone ran over its body. I can't help but think that that's what all roadkill is--some animal that was once alive, but hit something, hard, and died. Either instantly, or perhaps drawn out, like this small, dark duck. Somehow it seems worse if it was a bird. But I am reminded of many other animals in my life that have died. My next door neighbor's cat that crawled under out mustard-beige 1977 Toyota Corolla to die. My hamster, Lucy, who moved so slowly one morning when I left for school and then was completely still when I returned. Misty, Oliver, George--all floppy-eared rabbits we had while growing up.

I guess this seems pretty morbid. But I felt like I needed to put it down somewhere. Like this black duck needed to be recorded. I told my roommate, Jenelise, about it and she said with eyes a little wide and a faint smile, "you saw death!" I've seen dead things before, but this was different. It was a decline into it. And it took us both by surprise, me and the bird.

While the duck was struggling through its fading moments, I held my cell phone in my hand, and looked around the dark parking lot with my mouth open. My first thought was that I should call some animal help place--get some medical professional out there to cure and heal it. I felt my mouth gaping and flapping like a fish and I wanted someone to notice, to pay attention, to come and be shocked with me. But no one seemed to see. So I stood there in the night and cold with my backpack sagging unremarkably on my back and my arms slack at my sides and I felt a kind of helpless sadness that made everything else seem grossly inconsequential.

Now that bird is flattened against the pavement and its grace seems ironed out and lost. I wish I could've seen it in flight.