A Small Miracle on Dwight Way
Or, Always Be Excellent to Each Other

by brujaja

A few summers ago, it was hot. Hot, hot, hot, hot, hot. The kind of hot where a city block seems like a sleepless nightmare, shot entirely in tunnel-vision, of dessication and glare. I don't know where my bicycle was, but I was walking down Dwight Way in Berkeley with my usual mien of random good cheer, when I happened to glance to the side. I was halted, stricken, by what I had spied in someone's driveway, next to their drain pipe.

Oh, I must back up a bit to mention that, on this particular day, I had stopped momentarily to pick up a nearly full bottle of fancy water that someone had put in their recycling bin. Now, I will stop at a freebox and rummage through if I feel like it. Sometimes I go to freeboxes on purpose. But I have never, ever, ever picked up anyone's discarded food or beverage for my own consumption. I mean, yuk. I still have no idea why I did it that day. I know I had no intention of drinking it. just some vague concept of it coming in handy, I think.

So back to the sad sight. There, on the blazing hot cement of the driveway in the blazing hot sun — a miniature landscape not unlike the surface of Mercury — were two teeny little baby birdies. Mostly pink chicken-looking skin with that absurdly fluffy down, and those big, sightless baby bird eyes. Lying still in the stark hot noonday sun. I stood there a moment gazing in pity, and noticed a stream of ants going in and out of one of the birdies’ eyes. I'm squicking myself out here, but you have to understand the grim pathetic defeat of the whole scene.

And then…the other birdie moved! Ever so slightly, the weakest tiny twitch, but my brain went, OMIGODHE'SALIVE! and flipped into overdrive. I fished the bottle of water out of the load of useless junk I was carrying, and snatched the little birdie up and into the shade with my great big clumsy Giant fingers and more delicacy than I have ever mustered in my entire life. His little beak opened and closed soundlessly. Even without anthropomorphizing, I can only imagine what that poor creature was feeling. And I did it. I opened the bottle of God-knows-who's former water, and took a big swig that I didn't swallow. And when the bird opened its beak, I dribbled it in, a few drops at a time. I did this several more times.

After a while, the bird opened its beak, and a small croaky “cheep!” came out. He fluttered his wings once or twice. He cheeped again. His fluffy baby down waved absurdly when he moved. I loved him with a love of ridiculous proportions and crooned little goofy chick stuff at him. (Takes one to know one!) Finally it occurred to me to look up into the tree overhead to see if I could locate a nest. It was a really large leafy tree, and I was kind of surprised to actually see the nest easily; but it was not within my reach.

I should mention here that I used to be not at all shy with strangers, but time and the modern world have made a lot of headway beating that out of me. I looked in the front yard next to the driveway, under the tree, and noticed a low fence enclosing it at about waist height. I am not the sort of person to climb strangers' fences in their front yards —it's not polite — so I went up to the front door with my little fluffy friend and knocked boldly anyway. Yaaaargh! No one answered.

Just then, their next-door neighbor drove up and got out of her car. I said, “Excuse me, but I've found this baby birdie and his nest's up there and your neighbors aren't home and do you think it would be okay if I climbed their fence to put him back?”

She said, “I don't think they'd mind.” Not sure how I got up there one-handed, but I put him back. I half-expected to find some cuckoo chick in there; you know, the kind that push competing chicks of the host bird out of the nest to their deaths, but no, it was empty.

I know, his mama might have been dead. I know I was told as a child that if you touch a wild animal, you get “human-smell” on it, and its mother will reject it. But whenever I go by that particular house, I always hear birds singing.