A true story of devotion

Coming home from work Friday in rather busy traffic, I was stopped at a light, barely missing the left-hand-turn signal at a busy intersection. Sitting there slightly annoyed, I noticed a bird descend directly in front of a stopped car and hopped in front of a tire.

I apologize for not being able to identify the bird's species, but you can picture whatever kind you are familiar with. Imagine a little gray songbird that you might see prospering in the urban sprawl mostly anywhere. It took a hop around what to it was a massive, foreboding truck tire. I noticed that there was another bird there, in way-to-close proximity to the truck that was waiting for the light.

Despite birds getting quite used to traffic, I couldn't believe these were so reckless as to sit immediately in front of this truck. The first bird took a few more hops and then flew up to rest on the horizontal pole holding the traffic signal. After a moment he flew half-way back down the turned and flew back up to a power line.

I realized then that the bird on the ground was completely stationary. It was standing almost immediately in the tire's path and it wasn't eating or hoping or walking or anything. It was hurt, having probably been hit by a car and broken a wing at least.

A few moments later, the truck, oblivious to the little bird, got its green light and drove off. The tire, from my perspective by the smallest of inches, missed the bird and the back tire did the same. I confess I was cheering for the little thing to live even though I knew it was probably unlikely at that point. Not only were all the many cars hazards, but it was hurt already or possibly suicidal or insane.

The companion bird watched with me as the second car also missed the little thing, raising my hopes that perhaps it was out of the most common tire path and he might make it, at least for a little while. The third car not only crushed my hopes but the bird - completely flat. I flinched in my seat, watching the end come quickly. The next car added insult to death as did the next car and the next. It was the first two cars that were off the standard path.

I quit watching the pancake-like corpse and instead looked for the companion bird, now alone. It flew from traffic arm to traffic arm, line to line, perch to perch. Can a bird looked distressed? This one acted that way, at least to me.

After a parade of cars over the flat little body, it was finally my turn to head left and I left the scene of the avian massacre, probably one of only two entities on Earth aware of the short but dramatic ordeal. I watched the living bird fluttering around, making circles around its dead former companion.

It made me sad.