The happy place

Today as I was stacking firewood in the barn, I saw a dead little bird covered in dust lying on the floor.

It must’ve fallen out of the nest up there on the roof beams, maybe by accident or possibly in a failed attempt to fly.

It weighed nothing as I gently lifted it up in my hands to take it outside.

I know too little about birds to say what kind of bird it was, and furthermore like I said it was covered in dust. I would say it was the flying kind of bird, but what then was it doing on the floor?

The wrongness of the whole situation: a bird on the ground, and always the sadness of a young life cut short, struck me as a powerful bad omen which sent shivers through my system as I unceremoniously but with a sense of urgency tossed the little tiny corpse into the bushes outside.

I then went back and promptly continued the wood stacking as if nothing had happened.

As if nothing had happened! That’s most unsettling of all.