Last Christmas, a very good friend of mine came round with a present. For me. It was in a cardboard box. Not wrapped up. He said “I thought you would like this. It is a baby bird”.
And I can understand why he thought I would like a baby bird, because I have two children, two dogs, one cat, at one point 24 rabbits but many escaped or were eaten by eagles or went to live in Pigeon Valley, one Russian hamster, one Siamese fighter fish, a bottom feeder (the aquatic type) and 2000 yellow and purple guppies.
And I didn’t assertively say: “Actually I do not want a baby bird. Because of the above mentioned dependents. And I am scared of birds. Because they can peck you. And I don’t like their claws. Also, even though it is Christmas, at the moment, my usually bleeding heart full of kindness and empathy is as empty as the bottles of wine I am having for supper. And I am so tired and so generally cross that I am even driving in an aggressively unforgiving way, and not letting anyone in. In fact at the moment I am accelerating towards jaywalkers, even people in wheelchairs and children. Never mind small birds.”
I didn’t say any of that. Instead I said. “Thank you. How kind of you to bring me this present. But I’m afraid I don’t know how to look after baby birds. In fact I don’t know anything about birds at all. Apart from Vultures, because I had to do a story about them.”
And he said, “Don’t be silly Jess. it is easy. Caterpillars. ProNutro. This bird will change your life.” And then he rushed off to a very important work event.
So Thea and I made the bird a nest out of something and found some worms in the earth, but the bird didn’t like them. So I went to the Spar to buy ProNutro. But I didn’t know which flavour baby birds might like and what the consistency of the ProNutro should be and whether it should be warmed up and mixed with milk or water. And do you need to give it to the bird with a spoon or a syringe? And the box had no information at all about RDA for baby birds, only children and puppies. And I was getting quite stressed. But then I saw Eddie. Also in the cereal aisle.
I am sure absolutely no one reading this interesting story will know who Eddie is. Because he never usually comes to Glenwood. Even though he lives nearby. And he never ever comes into the glorious constellation of shops known as the Glenwood Village, which is where we were now.
He doesn’t do this because he used work in a pub in the Glenwood Village called Villains, where he was always accidentally and sometimes intentionally getting whacked on the head with pool cues while trying to stop angry drunk people fighting. Anyway he said he found it too post-traumatic to come to even the Spar at the Glenwood Village, because of all the Villains’ bad memories. He said it was in fact a miracle that he was there. But he had run out of milk.
And of course you might be thinking, this has absolutely nothing to do with ProNutro and baby birds, but the thing is that after Eddie left Villains after a few too many blows to the head, he went to work in a PET SHOP in Durban North. Which is where we first met. When I was buying hay for the rabbits.
And so the miracle of Eddie, finding the courage to go to the Spar the very hour that I went to the Spar, meant he was able to tell me exactly step-by-step how to look after the baby bird. And I was able to honestly say to Eddie that he was the best person I had ever bumped into at the Spar. And that I was so extremely glad he had run out of milk.
And that conversation seemed to make him very very happy, and in fact, he said that me being so excited about seeing him, helped him to feel better. And realise that he was actually a very useful and worthwhile person. He even said that perhaps he might start coming back to Glenwood more often.
And so we both went happily off with our ProNutro and Milk, with hearts less empty and less fearful. Feeling that the universe had conspired in our and the bird’s favour. And I was sure that this remarkable coincidence meant that me and the bird were destined to have a long and happy life together.
But the truth is that by the time I got home, the baby bird was dead. It had been eaten by the cat. And me and Thea were quite upset. Because we had made space for it. Despite never really wanting it at all in the first place.
Anyway a few days later Eddie texted me to find out how it was going. And so I sent him a picture of the bird when in first arrived in my friend’s hand and said sadly the bird had not lived for very long. Not because I’d fucked up in the feeding of ProNutro, but because of the cat.
And then, in a final very important plot twist, Eddie wrote back. He said: did I know that the Baby Bird was a baby Cuckoo. And he said Cuckoos are really not very nice. At all. Not that they deserve to be eaten by cats. But that I needn’t be too too sad about the whole thing being over so soon. Because it was a story that could only ever have ended in heartbreak, especially if over the weeks and months I had become even more attached to the Cuckoo.
And incomprehensibly, there is actually a part 2 and possible a part 3 to this incredible story, and the theme of ‘gifts you cannot receive, nor comprehend the significance of” but I’ll save that for next week…