My bird died. I wanted to bury it. It wasn’t my bird, to be fair, and it was a suicidal bird, nonetheless that ended up dying in my home. It’s strange how human beings find the most insignificant of things and decide to label them as their own. An extension of their own fragmented identity, well, fragment it further, but anyway the bird is dead.
Somehow, the bird ended up at my window, a large almost door like glass panel, banging his head, making his way through the grill at the bottom. He relentlessly repeatedly banged his head on the glass, all the way horizontally across to the other end. Suicidal bird!
I stumbled onto it on a fine Sunday morning as I was about to sit in my study, read, study or do whatever nerdy stuff I was about to do, comfort zone! The comfort zone has now become too uncomfortable. I called several numbers, only for my call to be hung up, promises of volunteers showing, only to not be following through. I don’t blame them.
The thing died. Anyway, I wanted to bury it but before I could, I don’t know how it had been disposed of. Now, I am too scared to ask. So, I will let that secret stay between the lines, until one fine day, when I am riding an emotional roller coaster and suddenly cannot fight the urge to know where his carcass ended up!
As a culture, we, myself included, have a very low rate of following through on our promises. But we try. And, when we commit, we hope for sure, a hundred percent with cross-our-hearts-in-hopes-to-die certainty that we shall follow through.
It is this following through that has led me on many a suicidal mission over the past year (2019).
Like the suicidal pigeon, several suicidal ideas happened to stumble on to my figurative doorstep. And, I have come to realize through relentless contemplation, in retrospect, of course that you need to tell the suicidal pigeon to mind his own business in the first place.
You need to tell all the suicidal pigeons that they would bleed when they would bang their heads relentlessly on the window, heights of self-sabotage! It is important for you to witness that from a distance biting your tongue, clenching your fists and resisting the urge to not take the high ground for once and tell the pigeon to fu** off.
Simply because you don’t really know how to take care of him, you are not sensible enough to understand that you shouldn’t leave him over in freezing cold outside in the balcony when it’s already injured – that’s obvious. You’re not cut out to be the hero.
It is this irrational projection of my senseless idea of inclusivity, justice and vestiges of partially Amelie-inspired-savior-complex coupled with a healthy dose of no-one-dies-at-my- doorstep/messed-up-value-system attributes that projects itself on such banal pursuits.
But, you also need to understand that when you do open the door for the bird to breathe, make its stay around your bedroom door cozy, it also means that you have sent an open invitation to the universe – yes I am committing to this.
When you do commit, you need to follow through. You need to manage your professional life, your dysfunctional family and of course, your mental health all while dealing with the set of pigeons who refuse to budge from their rigid I-don’t-give-a-fu**-ass.
With the political climate change looming over the probable destruction of diversity, the pigeons will keep banging their heads, because they are irrational dumbfucks who don’t read or understand and will keep doing what they have been conditioned to do simply for the sake of it.
I have never counted my pigeons before they hatched. I have never thought before banging my head on the wall. I just rush in at the sight of bleeding walls and open floodgates, especially, when the flood is at my intersectional doorstep – such a silly suicidal pigeon I reckon!
But, how does one person, half of one, if you consider my spine (literal spine), how does half a person stop the floodgates? The thing is, she doesn’t. The thing is, she can’t.
The world honors martyrs, but then again at what cost?