Vestige: s01e03
(originally published in 2020 when the world was broken; it wasn’t as well put together as the world is now 🥴)
In New Orleans, the family lived in an apartment complex called Maple Leaf. We were there for two years, in two different apartments—a two-bedroom at first (The only real memory I have from that apartment involved me playing with a BBQ sauce packet until it exploded in my face.) and a townhouse. Many significant memories come from the townhouse.
It was the spring of my first-grade year when I found the three baby birds. In the tree above the dead body of their mother. It was the largest tree in the courtyard in front of the group of townhouses. One of my Dennis-named friends climbed it once and wouldn’t come down until my father yelled at him.
Either I heard the birds—or I found them on the ground. I do remember a dead bird. But I have seen a few of those in my life. So, either my dad picked them up off the ground or climbed in the tree and got them—regardless, they ended up in the upstairs bathroom and my father was on the phone with someone telling him how to feed baby birds.
“Well, I guess we have to take care of them now”
my father said as all of us stood over the three naked things as they clamped their beaks together rapidly and chirped. “Poor wittle bwaby bwirds,” my dad placed their nest in a bowl on a bed of paper towels. “They need warmth. Grab your desk lamp!” After a few essentials were called for, we created a homemade incubator in the corner of the upstairs bathroom. My father finished mixing the mush and filled an eyedropper with said mush. “Here goes nuthin’.” He dripped the mush into the mouth of one of the birds, who seemed to eat it. “I guess he liked it?” my father shrugged and administered the mush to the others.
My little brother, Job, and I were both equally amazed by the whole ordeal. Baby birds—in our bathroom. Being fed by our own father…
“We have to do this every two hours.”
“Will they be OK?”
“Probably not.”
One bird didn’t make it through the night. The second died before the following night.
“One more left,” my father said. “This one looks like the strong one.”
I must have helped with the feedings and nest changings because the strong one didn’t die. He grew. Every day he came closer and closer to resembling a bird. Until one day, he was one.
“Time to let him fly away,” my father said one morning. We placed the bowl nest on the ground next to the tree that it came from. I don’t remember what happened next. I’d like to think it flew away—leaving me and Job and Dad behind. Waving. Sad, but happy.
Like the way the viewer should feel when E.T. makes the rainbow with his ship. As a viewer, you should feel sad because E.T. is leaving, but when the rainbow appears, you should feel happy because you realize that E.T. is going home.
Not sure why I felt the need to elucidate. I’m sure you know how emotions work. And besides, you can feel any way you want.
They weren’t cute, the baby birds. But we saved them anyway.
Well, we saved one. I’m also sure of it.