Today I saw a bird on my deck just outside the glass sliding door. It had soft,
downy feathers of bright yellow on its chest, grey colored wings, and a
horizontal red streak across the dorsum of the tail. I did not want to see the
eyes.
It was dead.
It must have frozen overnight as the temperatures here in Georgia go down below
freezing at night. Yet at noon the temperature becomes almost tropical. Global
warming has driven the weather and the seasons crazy all over the world. This
global warming, they say, is mostly because of our own abominable environmental
abuse. Flooding in Cagayan and Gingoog? Unthinkable.
I picked up the bird and flung it as far as I could, away from our townhouse
unit, towards the pinetree line to the east. I felt guilty. I don't know why I
felt guilty. After all, it was only a bird. I did not kill it. It just died.
God's will.
I remember two summers ago. Jean told me that one of the malnourished children
who we were feeding had died. Of pneumonia. And surely, hunger and malnutrition
made it easier for the three year old girl to succumb to the bacterial
infection. When I heard about it, I felt a pang of guilt. I don't know why. I
was not responsible for her death. After all, I did not even know the little
girl. I had never seen her. Just one of half a dozen hungry children of lazy or
ignorant parents who did not know any better. Copulation is a natural animal
behavior. Contraception is not. Perhaps they did not have a television set. So
she just died. Of pneumonia. And hunger.
Why should I feel guilty? Why should I feel responsible? Is her death not part
of God's universal plan? Is it not God's will?
There should be a heaven for little birds. I read somewhere that birds, like
plants and animals, have souls. But that the souls cease to exist at the moment
of death. Only human beings, who may be the least deserving, have immortal
souls.
But that child should go to heaven. I hope she does not go hungry there.
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