A Bird Named Robert

A bird flew past the tall window. The therapist’s office was hot.

“You had mentioned someone named Robert last session. I apologize that our time ended before we were able to get into it, but regarding that, was there anything else you wanted to talk about?”

“Robert? Yeah – I mean, there’s lots I could talk about... Where should I start?”

“Well, you had mentioned that you two were friends for some time. How about a memory you have, of the two of you?”

“Okay. Sure. Uh… yeah, I have a memory I think’d be good.”

The therapist’s office was hot.

“We were in my apartment at the time, on the couch. Watching some old movie. It was the dead of night, somewhere in January, and it was real cold out. That freezing cold, you know, when the air starts getting thin, and it hurts to breathe, and the days are just breaks between nights. We were drinking in my living room, and we were pretty drunk, by this point.

“This ambulance drove by outside. My apartment lit up, all red and blue, the colours drowning in the shadows, and he turned to me – Robert did – and he said, ‘Owen, can I ask you a question?’

“I went, ‘Sure, what’s up?’

“It was quiet for a moment. There was some sinking stillness, in my stomach, in my chest. And he said, ‘Owen, you think about death?’

“I looked at him, all quiet, and asked, ’In what sense?’

“’I mean… does dying – do you think about it much?’

“’Who doesn’t?’

“’Sure, sure… but I mean like – how do you think about it?’, he said to me.

“I said, ‘I think sometimes it’s the better alternative.’

“He got quiet. I heard someone on the TV talking. Robert was just a spot in the shadows. ‘How so?’

“And I told him about the time I watched this baby bird die. I was at my cousin’s lake for a couple days. He and I used to walk around this forest along the water’s edge, exploring, getting lost. Those trees couldn’t end, the leaves an ocean of soft green. When a cool breeze came off the lake, a choir of these little voices would ring out, soft like a memory. This one time, we were walking back to his cabin when my cousin saw by the side of the trail this… this little bird, all crumpled over itself. I thought it was a piece of litter at first.

“My cousin and I, we’d stared at it for a bit, and when I bent down to take a closer look, it was still… I guess struggling’s the right word. It’s hard to explain. It was like a picture, or a statue, just figuring out it wasn’t supposed to be alive.

“I remember its little eyes most. All glazed over. They didn’t look like real eyes, almost doll’s eyes, but you could look into them, and they could look into you, and through you, but they saw nothing.

“When we figured it was alive, we ran back to the cabin and grabbed his grandfather. I remember telling him about the bird, holding in tears. He was standing in this dark old garage, next to the lawnmower, and it all smelt of gas and dust. We told him there was a baby bird struggling, dying, out in the forest. He looked at us, sighed, and said, ‘Alright… let me grab a shovel.’ And I didn’t… I didn’t know why he needed a shovel, or anything – I was, like, a kid, you know? Six or seven or something. We led him back to the bird and he stood there and looked at it for a second and crouched down, and it struggled. And he stood up, groaning, all slow, and lifted the shovel over it, point down. And I… I remember I asked, ‘What are you doing?’

"And he said, ‘Turn around,’

"And I said, ‘Grandpa, what are you doing?’ He wasn’t my grandpa, but I called him that anyways.

"He said, ‘Owen, turn around.’

“And I think something there, clicked. He was standing over it, this spade, the edge of it, all rusted and mangled and fucked up, over this dying baby bird and it was twitching and looking at me and through me. I started crying and got mad I was crying, and before he could bring the shovel down, I ran and grabbed the bird and picked it up.

“The way it felt in my hands… I don’t know. I was holding a tiny piece of something I wasn't meant to. Grabbed something before I could see it. Next thing I knew, I felt something iron around my arm and I was pulled back and my cousin’s grandfather was looking down at me and his face was all red and he was yelling, ‘Put that fucking bird down.’ It was the first time I’d heard that word – fuck. I started shaking, and couldn’t put it down, and he said, ‘You trying to torture the damn thing, Owen?’ and I didn’t put it down. I don’t know why I didn’t – I seized up. Froze. I couldn’t move and I was staring at his eyes and I felt the bird twitching, and trying to move but not moving, in my hands. And… and my cousin’s grandfather, he crouched down to one knee, and he looked at me, and he said, ‘Son, it’s better this way. When something is in pain like this, it’s kinder to put it out its misery. It hurts, but when it’s time to go, it’s time to go. It’s a mercy.’

“And he slowly opened up my hands and pulled the bird out, and he set it down on the ground and, well… he brought the shovel down, on it.

“I’d hit that point, in telling Robert about it, when the ambulance drove by again outside. The red and the blue lit back up the apartment, and … the way Robert was looking. He was looking down at the ground, and his face was all cold and still and like stone. His eyes were glazed right over, and he was looking at nothing.”

The office was silent. A truck drove by outside. The clock ticked. A bird flew past the tall window. Owen hid his tears.

“I’m hearing a lot of unresolved emotion there. Unfortunately, we’re running out of time here, Owen, so I’ll make a note and we’ll—"

“He killed himself two weeks later.”