My cats are stalking each other again. Orange-and-white flame spreads slowly across the grass, pretending casualness, and the pool of ink slinks in the shade, pale green eyes burning animosity. A fight is sure to break out in carefully counted seconds. But their interest in each other is detached, and today it is too alive.
Something dark bursts out of the ground between them and flees to the thick ivy cover under a bush that drips bright red flowers. I throw myself against the door and it gives with a raucous jangling of bells; I run at them waving my arms like an avenging roc and shouting “Get! Away! Now!” The harsh cawing works. The two cats have never looked so surprised and offended by me. Shimbo, still lurking in the shade because it matches him, gives me a glare of incredulity when I ask him where the thing went. What kind of cat would I be if I gave away information like that? He wants to know.
He has a point. I dig around in the ivy and decaying petals myself, gingerly because I don’t want to hurt the bird, or be gored (if it’s in a particularly bad mood). Finally I see a light white-flecked brown that clashes with vibrant green and decaying leaves, and I pull the ivy aside. The bird is looked bigger from the window and I’m surprised that its quaking body is at most only half the size of my palm.
I slide my hand slowly through the leaves toward it, still petrified of breaking it to pieces, it looks so fragile. At the touch of my hand it lurches forward and burrows deeper into the twisted vines around the bush’s base. It’s so dark under the confounded shrubbery I’m sure I’ve lost it. “Damn, damn, damn.” I mutter as I work through the leaves again. Shimbo is still watching me closely, assuring me that he’ll take over the search once I give up; Mischief, the other cat, prowls a few yards away.
Then I spot the ravaged tail-feathers again. This time I reach without hesitation, half-closing my hand around the little body before it lunges again, this time out of my reach and around the bush. Shimbo leaps to the chase and I think the only thing I can do now is pull him off the tiny bird once he’s crushed it with his colossal weight.
But as he turns around the bush towards me, a little arrow darts between my knees and shelters underneath me where I kneel. My cat shoots me another look of disgust, because I can never catch my own small animals; no, I always have to rob him of his. He slinks off to brood.
I sit there breathing shallowly for something like five minutes before I lean over to look between my knees. The tiny bird is down there, shut off from a backdoor escape by my shoes.
I reach slowly and deliberately to close my fingers around it, and pull it out into the light, chirruping and bewildered. Then I manage somehow to get both hands around it while it thrusts upward, opening and closing its tiny beak in horror at the even bigger monster that now has it firmly trapped. Funny how I can tell it’s looking at my face, even though its little water-droplet eyes are black through and through. Its whole body throbs with its pulse as it finally falls still, watching me. I’m holding a beating organ in my hand.
Almost as scared as the bird, I don’t know what to do now. We hold still, sizing each other up, neither having any idea what happens next.
I take it to my Dad, who isn’t very interested. He tells me to find somewhere to put it, and if it seems unhurt, to let it go far away from the house and the cats. Obviously, my shaky “It’s cute” has made him afraid that I will want to keep it like I would have at age 8.
I find one of my ornamental wooden bird cages and, with a lot of angling, get the little bird in. Still it’s doing nothing but watching me. Its liquid eyes accuse me of crimes I’d never dream of committing against an adorable little avian creature. Upon close inspection it proves to be some kind of wren. Unfortunately for me, Google knows everything, so its assertion that wrens eat pretty much nothing but spiders and bugs does not thrill me. Still, I know that I probably shouldn’t risk keeping it overnight anyway; in my absence the little juggernaut has come alive and is currently occupied bashing itself against the flimsy wooden bars of the cage. The hyperventilating wren resembles more than ever a pumping heart, enclosed in someone’s ribcage.
Since the bird is so energetic, I decide it’s probably safe to let it go now. Almost all of its tail-feathers are missing, but they’ll grow back, my all-knowing guru father informs me. I take a leisurely walk through the chilly breeze and light rain down our road, with the cage in my hand vibrating more the further we go. At one point the little wren sticks its head between the bars, confident it can squeeze through. Its head promptly gets stuck and it chirps desolately until I pry the bars apart for it to pull out.
Finally, I climb a slippery slope that leads to the stretch of woods on the other side of the road. There’s a haven of undergrowth for the crazy thing to shelter in. I set the cage down and assure my frantic friend it will be free in ten seconds, then pry the metal clips off the bottom of the cage and pull the top off with an unintended jerk.
This move completely stumps the wren. It looks right, then left, right again, left again, up at me, right again, then decides if I’m really stupid enough to stand there, not devouring it messily, it should seize the opportunity. I watch the little bird skitter across the wet ground till it finds a tangle of vines like veins and jumps into the middle, holding stock-still, convinced it’s outwitted me and I am now casting about for my lost snack. I wave at it somewhat sourly, knowing already that wild animals do not generally express gratefulness, but still feeling somewhat empty.
Then I walk back home to my bitter cats and the empty flower-bush, finished with my heart transplant.
I think of the overused saying, "If you love something, set it free. If it comes back, it's yours; If it doesn't, it never was in the first place." I know full well that I couldn't call that bird my own. But right now as I pick up a glass, as I touch a stuffed animal, my hands itch. I can't stop reliving that dangerous, amazing feeling... like holding a ticking bomb.