Weekend Whimsy

Birds

No, don’t touch it.

Why not?

Because if the mother smells a human scent on its baby, it will kill it.

It will kill its own baby?

Just leave it alone.

Dogs

Not every house in the heart of Texas had central air, and I learned how to save my energy for nightfall, when I would sit with Max and pull ticks from his skin. He would sit very still until I had finished and then bound off the porch into the yard, begging me to chase.

My neighbor steps outside and calls over to me, “You want this dog house?”

He lives alone, an old burlap sack of a man, heavy and unshaven. His dog died long ago, but that old house remains. Max has no home, but taking the doghouse means I will have step into this old man’s yard.

People

She sneaks into the room looking for a diary. The desire to write one’s secret thoughts down onto paper bestowed upon her children, a Pandoran gift. These words do not belong to her, but the house does. And she cannot resist the box. Before she finds the diary, she realizes she treads lightly, but then brushes aside her discomfort with a laugh, and whispers, “I have every right.”

Dogs

He had made the house with oak and plywood, and used a real composite roof. The base of the dog house lay buried at least two inches into the dry, cracking earth, and I use every one of my 65 pounds to force it from its hold. At the beginning, I nervously keep one eye on the old man, who watches me with no expression. I prepare to run across the yard and jump the fence should Max bark a warning. But he never budges in the fading twilight, and after 30 minutes I concentrate only on moving the house. He never offers to help.

After I drag the doghouse all the way through his yard and into mine, he says, ‘Ten dollars.’

My heart sinks. “What?”

“Ten dollars.”

Even at 9 years of age I know what has happened. I don’t protest, but simply start pulling the house back towards his yard. We don’t have ten dollars.

Birds

I found another bird a week later, but couldn’t resist this time. The urge to care for this helpless creature too great, though I knew the consequences. But I could not help but imagine myself saving this animal. I dreamed of walking to school with flocks of saved birds hovering above me, alighting on my shoulder to show off my fraternity with Mother Nature. I wanted to prove them all wrong. To take care of that bird like I took care of Max. To stand up for every creature killed by its own family for smelling like a human.