Reflections about death and other issues
Esta imagen pertenece a María Del
Reflections about death and other issues
In the place where I am there is a bird, it hits the window with its small yellow beak, it seems extremely distressed by the presence of this glass, although he does not know what it is. I can't tell if it's curiosity or discomfort what he's feeling for the window. It causes me an anxiety which I did not expect, an anxiety which I did not know I could harbour so suddenly and which increases with each tapping.
I tell him to stop in a low voice, a little forced, but it is obvious that he cannot hear me and much less understand me. The little blue jay looks at me, stops for a second and then resumes its futile activity.
I continue the things I did before this ruffian appeared in my window, but as I lay my hands on the paper, I realize that I haven't written a word and that my ring finger was moving to the rhythm of incessant tapping. Suddenly I realize and interlock my fingers to stop that involuntary movement, which works for the moment.
I let out the biggest sigh in my life, I get up from the chair, which screeches as it crawls across the floor, and I look at the bird; its blue color, with a slight violet shade, its wings a little darker than the rest of its body stood up from time to time to help it hit the window from other angles; its legs, the same yellow color as its beak, were wrinkled and with small but sharp nails. Finally I stopped at his eyes, completely black, without brightness, without any depth they looked at nothing. I understood that the feeling that he was looking at me was wrong because that blue jay did not know who I was, nor why I was where I was.
I put my face to the window and whispered:
Why are you doing this? I laid my hand on the icy glass, perhaps with the intention of scaring it, but this time I only managed to get it to observe me with its black eyes planes. Stop, please. You will hurt yourself .
However, he continued.
I go down to the kitchen, open the refrigerator and pour myself a glass of cold water, I drink it to try to refresh myself, but my throat doesn't allow it, each drink is like a blue jay squawk. My hair bristles and I begin to feel cold. I try to delay the time to go back to the room, so I wash the glass I dirtied, dry it and put it in the cabinet, which I never do. I notice the change of behavior in me, but I ignore it.
I climb the stairs two by two, stretching my numb legs and stop at the door. I bow my head towards it, but I can't hear anything, I want to believe that it's tired and finally gone. I take the knob in my hand, it is strangely warm to my touch, I take a deep breath four times and turn it.
The room is just the way I left it, I keep my eyes fixed on the floor, I can't tell if the bird is still there, I'm scared. I close the door behind me and hear a frenetic flutter, my pulse accelerates and I look up.
The first thing I feel is the current of icy air that enters through the various cracks in my window, I move my eyes from here to there looking for the person responsible and I find him in the left corner. Its wings continued to move in all directions and with its small wrinkled and yellow legs it uselessly scratched the flat and hard surface of the window. He tried to free his already bloody head, his beak was broken at the tip and the nostrils were filled with cracked blood.
I ran to him, but I didn't know what to do with my hands to help him.
Why are you doing this? I asked him again uselessly. He could have asked me the same question, and the answer would have been the same.
The blue jay died in my window, it died in my window while I was on the floor of the room contemplating the grey ceiling and the yellow lamp, like the destroyed beak of the blue jay. My nose and fingertips were freezing, I never put anything to cover the airflow, so it never stopped coming in. The floor of the room under the window was soaked with bird's blood. But the bird would never know, he would never know that he had ruined the carpet.
I get up from the floor, sitting and looking at my hands, fingertips full of dried blood, I couldn't tell how many hours have passed, it didn't matter much either.
Finally, I stand up, open the door and walk to the bathroom, look at the grey hallways of the house and think of the blue jay, in its shattered head, in which the bird would never remember having died, nor ever been born. Which led me to think of something much more serious:
I wouldn't remember either if I died .
I wouldn't remember either if I died .
I couldn't remember if I died .
And if I couldn't remember if I died, what good is it to have lived so many years? Why did I think so many times "I must do this, tomorrow I could die" if I won't remember?
I wash my hands under warm water, clean each remaining bird blood from them, and when they finally return to their original color, I turn off the faucet.
On the way to the room where the blue jay still lies, I sit on the chair, take the pen, extend my clean hand over the sheet, because I finally know what to write.
I bow, release the second biggest sigh of my life, and I begin.
.... I'm not sorry, because if I was sorry, I wouldn't have done it.
When they found his body, along with the note in that room, there was no bleeding bird, the window was not cracked, no current cooled his fingertips, and the current did not blow his hair.
Note:
This short story was written during a time when I was feeling very bad, I cried while I was writing it because I didn't know what I was planning until I finished it. I discovered that the mind has curious ways of making you see things. Many friends told me they felt a little bad while reading it, I want you to know that it is not my intention to make anyone feel bad. On the contrary, it helped me a lot to write it and I hope that those who feel the same way can also be of help to them.