Bird Day

Darcy Casey

 

The Agway special was ten free chickens per kid, offer good while supplies last, so Gram was always one of the first through the doors, all us kids in tow. My brother, me, any cousins and a friend or two or seven if she could manage. We piled into her minivan, legs pretzeled together, seat belts shared or not worn at all as Gram flew over bumps and winter-worsened potholes that would never be filled.

On the way back we held printer-paper boxes of baby birds and our voices grew loud and excited until Gram would turn, car scraper in hand, threatening to smack if we didn’t just shut up. But her scolding couldn’t dampen our excitement on Bird Day. Once at Gram’s house, we’d watch the chicks for hours, reaching in to cup their cotton-candy bodies whenever Gram wasn’t looking. Sometimes, they died. Gram said it’s okay, you can always count on loss.

Then.

The first time the weather turned Gram told us stay away, but we didn’t listen, drawn to her house by the lure of now-grown chicks, by the possibility of catching their speedy, feathered selves and hugging them or putting them on the trampoline, to see if they would bounce-or-fly. Cruelty was lost on us.

You’ll watch then, said Gram, angry enough to show us what we didn’t know, what we were too young to understand as we huddled under her huge pine tree. Bird by bird, out to the red-stained stump. After, they ran, headless, stumbling and bumbling and not falling over, even though we willed for the end. We saw the bodies that were dead-but-alive, moving-not-breathing, and wondered: would that be Gram, someday? Us, too? We thought of what the future would bring as we plucked bird-bodies bald.

In the end: thirty-seven chickens in two trash bags.

When my father came, he saw our faces, saw the red that was everywhere and carted us away, his yelling at Gram muffled by the closed car door. Uncountable feathers tornadoed in the wind, dusting the yard like early snow as we pressed, pig-nosed, against the glass. One downy feather stuck in Gram’s hair and she wiped at it, smearing blood on her forehead, dampening a curl. We held our fogging breaths and heard her say with finality, that’s what death is. And we knew.

 
 

Darcy is a writer, teacher, and editor working on her first novel while drinking way too much coffee and attempting to rescue all furry critters in need. She can be found at www.darcyleecasey.com or @DarcyLeeCasey.

“Bird Day” is for Oma.