Death of Grackle

On my lawn, I saw a dark bird on its back. He was struggling and kicking, unable to flip over. I felt my stomach rotating. How could this not end horribly? The bird looked extremely filthy, so I grabbed the nearest thing that was long and flat (an auxilary window screen) and gently tried to flip the bird over. After about 10 seconds of him resisting me in every way he could, his feet finally touched the ground. He immediately shuffled forward about a foot. I silently rooted for him, hoping he would take off in a majestic burst of flight.

He tripped, though, and his neck struck the ground. His downward-facing wing winched him up at a 45-degree angle, making his body into an awkward triangle. Grackles always look stupid or terror-stricken due to their constantly open, beady fish-eyes. It was hard for me to not imagine he was actually in fear as he kicked and flitted with his apparently useless appendages. His wing was preternaturally extended and ruffled. It pumped up and down hopelessly. Every now and then the bird would get on its feet, desperately shuffle forward or to the side, and then collapse. It looked like he was drunk. I would have imagined funny music and a Bob Saget voice over if I wasn't sure that the bird was going to die.

I remembered times when I had similarly stumbled forward from injury, how I would physically try my best to stay on my feet and awake, but lose control and hit the ground. The weight of uncertainty and a bright, berzerk need to survive would flash on, inciting a terrifying cycle of wake/pass out. I wondered if he felt that uncertainty along with his desperate need to survive. After a few more bouts of run/fall, he stayed down. I thought I could see him breathe in and out. With his one fish eye facing upward and a slow, pumping breathing, it seemed that he had accepted his situation. He was recounting his life. His life of eating bugs, hopefully mating, and finally meeting his end by slamming against a wall. Did a life of unrelated, difficult experiences form a cogent narrative to him with death coming on? Probably not, it probably wasn't thinking of anything. Its attempts to move were a mechanic of instinct, it's failure to move was a failure of its body. I thought to call the humane society. Maybe they had a machine that they used to humanely kill birds. My roommate suggested we give the it a couple hours, maybe he was just stunned, or something, having hit our door. I pretty much knew it was dying, but I held out a vain hope that if I left and came back, it would be gone. I killed about a half-an-hour jogging, then worked in my room for a couple more hours, finally forgetting about the bird.

The next day, I woke up to the sound of someone mowing the lawn. I forgot that my roommate had hired someone to do that. I ran outside.

Me: Hey man, there might be a bird somewhere on the lawn, you might want to watch out for him.
Guy: Black bird? You don't have to worry about him.
Me: Oh..
Guy: He got chopped up! Crunched up by the mower! Hahaha!