Popsicle, with Feathers
Lish McBride
The bird is dead and the soil is hard, but I dig because I have to.
The finch is frozen, sandwich-bagged, and thrown into the box that sits next to me. This is my lesson, one out of two, as to why I shouldn’t own birds. The parakeet, escapist, sprung from his cage when I was at Dad’s, flew at the ceiling, breaking his neck. The cat might have been involved. Or not. There’s no proof. Just a dead parakeet on my bed, neck broken, yellow and blue feathers everywhere.
Welcome home.
Even before the parakeet’s break, the finch drowns in his water dish.
Both birds, brains the size of shriveled peas, choose suicide over me. It’s enough to make a girl cry. My mom finds the finch and thinking I’ll want to handle it grown-up-style and say good-bye, she bags its small body, and put its in the freezer. My brother finds the frozen thing while looking for a snack.
There’s a loud thunk as he drops it on the counter. “What the hell?” he says, but he’s eating a popsicle by the time he says it, more morbid interest than grief. And I understand. He has to take the opportunity. Popsicles are infrequent visitors to my house, they never last long.
The finch, apparently, doesn’t last long either, and I can’t drum up any more sadness for the dark-feathered frozen body than I could for any small dead thing found. Just surprise.
I put the bird in a box that is way too big, because boxes are how you bury things, whether you have a proper-sized one for the job or not. The dirt isn’t cooperating, and I’m too lazy to find the shovel, so I dig with a stick, a rock, my hands.
But the soil is hard and the box too big.
When I finish the job; though I’m something like six, I know it’s half-assed, the dirt barely covers the lid. Raccoons will get it, or a dog; possibly even my cat, out for a little frozen snack. I compensate with flowers, a few fistfuls of dandelions and foxglove, the only things growing close-by. Maybe I’ll say a few words, a fumbling eulogy by someone who’s only heard them on TV or read about them in books. I might even stand over the dirt pile, giving the bird a moment of silence.
Most likely I will shoot back to the house.
There are popsicles in there, and they won’t last.
Lish McBride lives in Seattle, where she undoubtedly has ice and frozen veggie things, but no birds, in her freezer. Hold Me Closer, Necromancer is the first in Lish’s series of forthcoming books.
