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It is true that the little bird had lost
nearly half of its left wing after the
dog had had her pleasure with it.
The man did all that he could to
salvage the small bits of cartilage,
pressing chunks of loose flesh back
into the bone, hoping it would stick
like putty if only he applied enough
pressure for a long enough period
of time.

    He drove. He drove knowing that
it wasn’t safe for him to be driving
while holding a dying bird in his lap,
pellets of muscle staining his pants,
but he was careful, and he knew that
if he waited, the bird would not
survive. For this, he is a kind man.
It would be impossible to not think
he was a kind as man when he did,
after all, leave his car running when
he reached the animal hospital to
ensure that the bird received prompt
attention. Some would call this stupid,
a man abandoning his vehicle like that, but those
more foolish would call it kindness, but it matters
little how he is judged because he did, after all, leave his car running
and in doing so, it was stolen, but by then, the bird had been stabilized, and he cared more for the bird’s health than a money-eating car.


   

It’s true that the car was stolen, that he in fact had stolen it because it wasn’t but earlier that day that some louse left his car unlocked with the key still in the ignition. This man, this kind man who saved the poor
bird, out of dumb luck stumbled across this car,
this car that clearly belonged to someone else,
but not caring much, perhaps because of
intoxication, he got in and drove away.

We’re not going to call it karma or fate or any of
these words, but it is impossible to deny that
there is some kind of cycle involved because
the moment he walked into his house, still
intoxicated, although that may be too kind
of a description, he saw blood drizzled in
chaotic trails. Out of curiosity, he followed
these movements, which he alone could see.
We have seen the house and the blood and sure
as shit there’s no way he could’ve seen any
kind of pattern, and yet, somehow he did, and
after he followed the trail to its end, he saw the
dog and the bird. He’s certain that at some point
there was a struggle, perhaps even a war, but by the
time he saw it, there were bits of dull bone protruding from this mass of flab and dirty feathers. The dog tossed it up and caught it. She tossed it up again and caught it midair. The man puked in his hand. Then, he called the dog, “Here Killer. Here boy.” The dog’s name wasn’t Killer. The dog wasn’t his. This wasn’t his house. But the dog came anyways. The dog came and dropped the bird on his feet.

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