"The Sparrow"

by

Lawrence R. Calmer

It was midsummer. The time of year when children, especially lone children such as myself, were likely to get into much mischief. Like the time I accidentally set fire to our back yard; of the time I was chased away from a cemetery for chipping pieces off of a tombstone; or the time I caught knocking over a cord of logs, carefully arranged by some Girl Scouts.

I was not a bad child, or even undisciplined, but I was, perhaps, a bit miss-mindful of my actions, and events always seemed to catch me unawares. Beyond counting are the times my father asked my why I didn't think things through before I acted, but full formed, conscious thought comes hard when one is young and the world is large and unexplored.

My mother was in the hospital that summer, and I was left largely to my own devices; an only child with a curiosity so large the outdoors was scarcely big enough to contain it. To consume the measureless hours of the long, long summer days, I would explore the small, nearby forest and trundle back with me, in sacks and jars, an endless zoo of snakes, insects, rodents, or any other small creature too slow to avoid my nature's trained hand. My mother's aversion to these lowly pets was near phobic, and I suspect that had she known the demons pit of God's small horrors I had actually collected, her stay at the hospital might have been longer.

One day while in idyllic, youthful, vacuous thought, I caught sight of something out of the corner of my eye as I walked past our small, unused garage, unused in the sense that we had no car. In its place, a dozen moisture stained boxes of the useless, indispensable items all households collect; cracked dishes, old books, lamps with no shades and the like. Anything decrepit enough to keep it out of the house, but serviceable to keep it out of the trash. Scolding, twittering and cavorting amidst this, our family's damp clutter, were a dozen or more sparrows, happily exploring a part of our domain the way I explored theirs. In and out the large, open front door they wheeled, spinning in tight, little formations no aerialists could hope to match.

Silently I crept to the mouth of the wood and fiberglass artifact we called a garage, and which they took for a cave, setting about to shut the door. Before I could leverage it completely shut however, the sparrows took notice and darted beneath the closing jaws of doom. All save one, which in its panic had started in the wrong direction. Round and round the small enclosure it spun, desperate for escape and finding none. It would alight from time to time on a rafter, its small chest heaving in terror and exertion, its small heart near to bursting I'm sure. But I, as a child, gave no thought to this as I jumped and lunged after the brown, feathered ball, stirring it to more and more desperate attempts of escape.

Set well below the rafters, and far closer to me than the scared little sparrow felt like coming was a very small window, through which the sun shown with the bright promise of freedom. With one last attempt to flee its tormentor, the small sparrow stole all its nerve and launched itself in a straight line at the glory of light that it saw.

With a sickening thud the poor, frightened creature rebounded from the glass pain, then fell limply to the floor; unconscious, breathless, dead. I stood breathless myself at the sad, pathetic sight, the little creature on its back, wings outstretched like a small feathered cross. Feeling physically ill with the guilt of what I had caused to transpire. I stooped to pick up the frail body, in vain attempt to undo what had been done. Its tiny form shifted unresistingly in my fingers, its little head lolling to one side as if connected by a mere strand of kite string.

With moist eyes and a tremor in my hands, I buried my hapless victim, by the side of the garage where its life had been taken. I did not speak of the bird to my father that night, or the night after, or in all the years to come. But the image of the sparrow was to return to me again and again through out my life, and I always stop to think things through a little better when it does.