I think this story started some weeks ago, when I heard that Anouk's song "Birds". I had managed for years already to keep my terrible fear of birds under control but from the moment I heard that, by the way, very beautiful song, a chain of events started, that hopefully reached its end today.
It all began with this feeling of unsettlement, when I listened to those lyrics "birds falling down the rooftops, out of the sky like raindrops. No air, no pride" and just like in years past I started walking in a state of alert avoiding anything that could be an indicator of a bird, specifically a dead bird close to me. I hadn't seen a dead bird in years and there was no exact reason for me to be scared, but there I was, scared of something that hadn't even happened. Until it happened: I was leaving work two weeks ago and when I was about to cross the street to get to my car, there it was this tiny yellow and green dead canary next to my foot. It actually wasn't even a horrifying scene, the bird was just lying there as if it had fallen asleep or death had caught it by surprise and its heart had suddenly stopped beating. But nevertheless it scared me. It scared me greatly, so much that the second I realized the dead bird was there I couldn't help but running away while repeating to myself "no, no, no!" as if I was completely out of my mind.
On the following days such encounters started happening more often. Dead birds were just everywhere. Sometimes I managed to avoid the sight of them by spotting some feathers spread around the floor, but sometimes I just run into them, mostly into pigeons busted against the pavement, some fresher than others, some really bloody, sometimes they had just turned into a grey protuberance on the sidewalk, in other cases one could even distinguish what used to be the beak and the claws lying around between the messy feathers and flesh scattered around the floor. Every single time I felt the fear crawling through my skin.
And then I watched Game of Thrones. I know for sure the show is nothing but fiction, but the scene of Orell's eagle attacking Jon Snow scared the hell out of me and kept me on edge for a long while. Before going to sleep I really needed to get that out of my head so I thought talking about it would help me calm down. I was wrong: the person I talked about it, decided that my fear of birds was something very amusing and even sent me a link so I could watch an Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds" scene and kept on poking fun at me a few times later, probably not intending any harm, but reminding me that birds were around and could attack me anytime. As if I hadn't enough coping with my own fears.
And then today happened. I was driving home when two cars in front of me I saw a black thing moving on the pavement. I thought it was a plastic bag at first, but then, after a millisecond I saw it. It was the saddest scene I have seen in a very long time. There it was this blackbird trying to soar after having been run over by a car. I could distinguish his eyes and his bright yellow beak as he was flapping his wings trying to ascend to no avail because half of his tiny body was smashed against the pavement. I drove past and had to stop the car. The sight of the bird was just too overwhelming to keep on driving. I felt my heart shrink and how tears clouded my eyes and were about to stream down my face almost inexplicably. A deep sorrow took over my chest and then I uttered this loud cry, it felt as if I had lost someone. I let the tears flow, I felt profoundly sorry for the bird, but I think I was feeling more sorry for myself. I cried for us both.
Since then I've been thinking and drawing conclusions. I realized I am not scared of bird themselves. I still find pigeons disgusting, but birds in general don't disgust me because of their appearance or what they could do to me. They won't do anything to me. I know that. I am scared of birds for what they represent to me. Since I was little I have this idea of birds dying so easily. I remember reading this book when I was about 5 years old in which a little girl's bird died in its cage overnight because of the cold. That left an indelible mark on my mind about how fragile the life of a bird can be. Another association about birds is that they die a messy death. I still remember my 6 year old sister smashing this baby sparrow with her bare tiny hand right before my eyes. We had found that little bird on the street and had taken care of it until it learnt to fly. One day my sister had it on the palm of her hand when it tried to fly away, she wanted to keep her on her hand. Just by closing her fingers around him she crushed the bird, which was dead in a second and all his blood dripping down on my sister's forearm.
So birds are nothing but a symbol in my head. They represent an unworthy death. I wish I could explain why that worries me, but I just can't. On the other hand they symbolize the fragility of life to me, how close we are to death, the unawareness of it until it find us. I think that is what moved me the most today. Seeing that bird trying to fly away, absolutely ignorant of its eminent death, probably in a lot of pain but not being able to understand what was happening, completely oblivious to the arrival of the end.
Since then I've been thinking and drawing conclusions. I realized I am not scared of bird themselves. I still find pigeons disgusting, but birds in general don't disgust me because of their appearance or what they could do to me. They won't do anything to me. I know that. I am scared of birds for what they represent to me. Since I was little I have this idea of birds dying so easily. I remember reading this book when I was about 5 years old in which a little girl's bird died in its cage overnight because of the cold. That left an indelible mark on my mind about how fragile the life of a bird can be. Another association about birds is that they die a messy death. I still remember my 6 year old sister smashing this baby sparrow with her bare tiny hand right before my eyes. We had found that little bird on the street and had taken care of it until it learnt to fly. One day my sister had it on the palm of her hand when it tried to fly away, she wanted to keep her on her hand. Just by closing her fingers around him she crushed the bird, which was dead in a second and all his blood dripping down on my sister's forearm.
So birds are nothing but a symbol in my head. They represent an unworthy death. I wish I could explain why that worries me, but I just can't. On the other hand they symbolize the fragility of life to me, how close we are to death, the unawareness of it until it find us. I think that is what moved me the most today. Seeing that bird trying to fly away, absolutely ignorant of its eminent death, probably in a lot of pain but not being able to understand what was happening, completely oblivious to the arrival of the end.
