I saw a little sparrow on the gravel road that Carla and I live on during my early morning walk down to the intersectional “T”, and it obviously couldn’t fly; something catastrophic had happened to one of its wings. My best guess is that it had first been careless and subsequently grazed by one of the infrequently passing cars on our desolate township road. In any event, the forlorn little creature couldn’t fly and instead hopped around desperately when I approached and quickly passed by it on the narrow roadway. I made no attempt to assist the little sparrow because, let’s face it, there wasn’t a goddamned thing I could do to enhance its future or change the impending outcome. This creature of God’s was a “dead bird walking” (No pun intended), and the only question relating to its future now was the method by which it would eventually perish. Would it be run over by a passing vehicle if it insisted on sticking to the gravel thoroughfare? Would the hapless critter be serendipitously discovered by a roving fox or coyote and then gulped down instantaneously—feathers and all? Or might it just unceremoniously die from severe dehydration there in the tall roadside grass as a late July sun climbed ever higher in the azure sky? None of these possibilities sounded very enticing to me but, again, there wasn’t a fuckin’ thing I could personally do to save the frantic little bird; its relatively quick death was now as assured as the aforementioned sun tumbling over the western horizon come duskingtide. In truth, the feathered creature was now as dead as it was alive, even if the tiny, admirably resolute avian still held out hope like all living things do until their very last minute and breath arrives.
Fred's Soapbox 