your dumb creature

thud

Back in Oregon this summer, I woke up one morning to a thud. It sounded like somebody had thrown something at my door. That was not impossible, but, since I was staying in a guest house in a backyard, it was unlikely. I forgot about the thud until, dressed and ready to go to the library, I stepped outside and found a dead bird. It had flown into a window—hence—thud. Like all the birds I’ve seen that have died by flying into windows, it looked as if it were under some kind of spell and not properly dead at all, a kind of Sleeping Beauty I at least am not brave enough to kiss. I had most of the blinds down in the place where I was staying, but I’d left one up. Probably that was the window it hit.

My response was not guilt—it is not irresponsible to leave the blinds up on a window. I feel sadness about the way its life and my life crossed. A bird doesn’t know what a window is and can’t be expected to know. The whole purpose of a glass window would mean nothing to a bird, even if you tried…