“In the foliage
A kind token from a bird
Feather in Fall’s grass”
― Marie Helen Abramyan

It was a beautiful bird. It had a bright green head, a white ring around it’s neck and a huge tail with long striped golden brown feathers. The bird itself was the biggest bird she had ever seen and it was walking around in her backyard. She yelled for her mom to come see the bird, but she didn’t notice that her dad was awake and he made it to the window first. To her dismay, her dad got a huge grin. He never smiled, especially when he was still in his pajamas. But he grinned and it wasn’t a very nice grin. It was the kind of grin that her cousins got when they had a sneaky idea.

Her mom still hadn’t answered as her dad told her to be quiet because he was going to go get his slingshot.He said it was because it wasn’t hunting season and no one was allowed to fire guns in the city. She knew that he killed animals, and most of them birds, because when he brought them home they looked just like the birds that were in the fields nearby but they were cold and their eyes had turned gray. Then her mom would pull out their feathers and cook them for dinner. She hated eating them because she always got little balls of metal in hers that hurt her teeth. No one else ever got any metal. It made her sad to see the little birds with their necks all floppy. She knew that her dad was going to try and kill the beautiful bird. She couldn’t let it be killed. It didn’t deserve to be dinner. They already had food for dinner. She didn’t want to see its eyes go gray or its beautiful neck fall sideways. He would be mad and threaten to kill her bunny and then make her eat her bunny. He always threatened her rabbits. Then he would get mad because she would get scared and cry. He couldn’t be trusted. So she ran out the sliding glass doorway, making as much noise as she could. The bird’s head turned towards her, the green feathers flashed in the morning light, bright red ones surrounded its eyes. It jumped as if she had just woken it up. It leaped up on the low part of the wall just as her dad was coming to the sliding glass doors and dropped down on the other side of the block wall, it’s long tail feathers disappearing into the shadows.

Her dad, barefoot in the dirt and still in his pajamas, ran to look over the wall. The bird was gone. He turned towards her and stalked up to her slowly. Expecting the worst, she closed her eyes and curled in her shoulders readying herself so she wouldn’t get knocked over. She got in bigger trouble if she fell down and got her clothes dirty. She thought she could feel the anger surrounding him. He was silent. He was always scariest when he was angry and silent. But the slap didn’t come. Instead he nearly knocked her over as he ran into her on purpose.

She heard her mother’s voice asking him what was wrong and why they were out in the backyard in the middle of winter. He said something under his breath that she couldn’t make out and headed into the house.She didn’t turn or open her eyes until her dad had gone inside and her mother came out to get her. The first thing she did when she opened her eyes was to look for the beautiful bird. It was gone. She had never been so happy that something was gone. She never saw that bird again. She was grounded for the rest of Christmas vacation. But it was worth it and she would do it again.

Her dad threatened her about her bunny becoming rabbit stew, but he never did it. He just liked to threaten those kind of things because it would make her scared but when she cried he would threaten her with further punishment because she was crying. For years, she went out of her way to never let her dad see any wild birds in the yard. Every new type of bird he would kill and bring home became the little wild ones to be protected. She didn’t need to protect the sparrows or the finches. But when the Mourning Doves and the California Quail would seek safety within the city limits during hunting season she would clear them from the yard before her father could see them.

Her bunnies passed on and she never asked for another. The wild birds like dove and quail, came less and less to the yard as the city blocks expanded. Whenever she did get to see something wild, she never told her dad. She knew that not just anyone could be entrusted with where the wild animals rested. As she grew up and moved away from that home, she made it a point to help wild animals and especially wild birds to be safe. Over time and through her journeys, she got to help birds. The tiny, lost, and injured parakeets, doves, pigeons and even once a very large hawk that had been hit by a truck all crossed her path. All because of a beautiful pheasant that – maybe – needed some help to get away.