That Moment

I awoke early that morning to an unfamiliar familiar sound. I rose from the bed with cacophonous singing ringing in my ears, separated the curtains with the breast stroke of an Olympic swimmer, and opened the blinds to the on rush of time. Peering through the window of my three-story, lofty view of the world, there she was sitting on the nest aesthetically nestled near the top of the giant oak where generations past had returned after winter’s wrath, to the safety of the mighty fortress, to rebuild dreams – the pursuit of happiness, the inalienable right. She tilted her head from side to side, ogling in my direction. Our eyes met. Her singing hushed. An aching silence came down. She raised her wings, shadowing the vision of her progeny, their mouths opened wide, the two heads bobbling with anticipation. “How are you on this beautiful morning?” I asked, inviting telepathic communication, the transported message lost somewhere in translation. Then I saw him, sprawled on the sidewalk beneath the power lines of harnessed energy, the enlightenment of a dark world. He lay on his back, motionless, steam rising from his cooling body like smoke from a freshly discarded cigarette. His twig-like legs pointed skyward, feet reaching for the perch where he and she paused momentarily, each trip back and forth, faithfully fulfilling the parental duties. He was her mate for life. She wrapped herself in stillness and lapsed into a bed of tranquility, shocked and confused, probably asking the age-old question, why? She had no one to console her, to help with final arrangements – no one. Even the passersby ignored the carnage. Who cared that he was dead, or even how he died: drive-by shooting, suicide, random act of terror. I slipped on some shorts and a pair of sandals, descended voluntarily to ground zero, retrieved the fallen hero, placed his remains inside a plastic bag, then placed the body bag into a giant freezer bag. They say it takes forever for plastic to decompose. This double-bagged container should have twice the life. From the seventy-eighth floor, she dolefully observed the numbing preparation of the ominous crypt as her heart collapsed, like two crumbling towers, into the open void, waiting for the morose, mordant earth to cover her sorrow now buried in darkness behind her eyes. As he was gently positioned into the pit of finality, just below the frost line, beneath the epic oak, silence held captive yet another moment, pondering – what may lie ahead? Now a single parent, can she handle the work of two? While away in search of food, will pedophile vultures steal the young? Will some Corvus Corax accuse her of abuse? Will an Otus Asio judge sentence her to a sanctuary for life to orphan her chicks? Worse still – put them up for adoption? And there are thousands of flying and crawling Vermin that survive with his demise – radical pests, intrepid militants, disguised as activists, sheltered by conservative liberalism now emboldened by the monument, a tribute to political righteousness eulogizing that moment. Suddenly, the shot heard ‘round the world, the day of infamy, and all the moments of the past lined up behind that moment, and all the future moments fell in line in front of it, in endless rows, like the long rows of flag-draped caskets sitting in an airport hangar somewhere in Maryland, sacrifices of dying hope that gave birth to new life, like in the tree, rescuing that moment for remembrance for two good reasons – you and me.