A Thousand Words: Baby Birds
July 6th, 2009by Lenore Zion
LOS ANGELES, CA-
I’d say my life started at the approximate moment that my identical twin sister died next to me in my mother’s womb.
After that, it moves all over the place. But that was the key moment, right then. And it, being the key moment, has peppered every other moment in my life.
Before grade school – kindergarten, I believe: I took piano lessons with a woman whose age I cannot remember. She forbade her students to touch the keys of the piano. We were “dirty little children,” and we could not be trusted to keep her piano, which was not actually her piano, but the school’s piano, clean. Instead, we played “Mary Had a Little Lamb,” pounding out each note on the wooden plank that covered the keys when the piano was shut.
From this teacher, I learned almost no piano – not a huge shock – but I did learn that I had murdered my twin sister. After class one day, she pulled me aside.
“No one will tell you the truth, but I will,” she said. “You are a murderer. Your twin sister is dead because you made her dead when you sucked the oxygen out of her inside your mother’s belly.”
This, as it turns out, was not true, as one fetus cannot suck oxygen from another fetus. Because a human fetus is not a feline character in an old wives’ tale. But what did I know?
I didn’t know much.
I didn’t know what it meant that my twin sister died before she was born. She was never born. How could she have died when she was never born? Doesn’t one invariably come before the other?
On a holiday – some holiday, I can’t remember which one – my mother, frazzled from being the mother of five living children and one dead child, lost focus and dropped me off for school to a locked and empty building. And she didn’t come back, at least not immediately, so I took a walk. There was a path lined with Sycamore trees. There was an illness going around in Sycamore trees that season. They were all falling ill, and inexplicably dying. Their leaves withered, and their branches drooped, and as a result, birds’ nests that once comfortably rested in the crooks of the trees, shifted. Sometimes, the nests would shift enough that an egg would fall from the tree.
That day, wandering alone, I came across an egg - that had fallen from its nest - which had shifted from its position on the tree - which was curling up and dying. This egg had cracked in half, revealing the fetus of a bird, drooped over the edge of the shell. The shell, though open, had pieces held together by a clear film. A string of this clear film was suspended between two large pieces, and on this string rested the baby bird’s crooked head.
I crouched down, hands on the ground, chin between my knees, and stared. I thought and thought and thought, and I eventually I laid belly down on the cold cement of the pathway, my face no more than a couple of inches from this tiny, dead, fetal bird.
Its skin was transparent beige. It had no feathers. Its eyes were closed. Its beak was closed. Its veins were dark. Its wings were bare. There was no blood. It just rested, broken, but not damaged, on the edge of the shell.
I thought then, after watching it do nothing, after watching it be dead, I thought: “Ah ha! Dead without ever having been born.”
And that’s when I noticed just how human this little bird looked. My God, did it look human! It was nothing but a tiny little bird-human, and it had died before it was born.
So I rolled over next to it, onto my back, and I smiled and I smiled and I looked up at the sky through the branches of the Sycamore trees that were bending and dying, releasing baby bird-humans to fall to their deaths, before they were able to be born. And it felt like they were falling all around me, though really, none were falling, not after the first one, but Goddamnit , it felt like they were raining from the sky.
All of these birds. Dead without ever having been born. Killed by the Sycamore trees that refused to hold them carefully.
Trees can’t be evil. They can’t be; they produce oxygen, they give life. But these Sycamore trees were tossing these baby birds to their deaths, and they were killing them, just like I’d killed my twin sister. But trees can’t be evil. And if the trees weren’t evil for killing these birds, then I wasn’t evil for killing my twin sister.
I used my fingernails. I clawed through the dirt in the ground beneath the Sycamore trees. I dug a hole, a nice, deep hole, and I buried the baby bird inside. I put it to rest, telling the tiny bird it had not been murdered, no, it had just died before it was born, and it was okay.
That’s when my mom came back to get me.
Since then, it’s like these baby birds really are raining from the sky – I see them everywhere. And I dig a hole in the dirt with my fingers, and I lay these not murdered baby birds to rest, and I tell them it’s okay.
Holy shit. Even now, after I’m familiar with some of these details already–holy shit.
Also: nicely done.
oh! i know. piano teachers can be so mean! thank you.
Also, knowing this for having long been involved with a former dancer, choreographers.
maybe this should be your next post? YES.
I remember many a teacher with the power to raise the hairs on the back of my neck. I was a piano teacher for a while. But I promise you that I let my students touch the piano keys until their hearts were full and happy:)
oh, i missed this comment till now…sorry.
um, you’re wayyyyy prettier than my old piano teacher. i believe you that your students were much more satisfied than i was.
Oh my God.
Your piano teacher was a bitch. I hope she fell in love with a piano that refused to ever love her back and moved to Venice, just to make her life a living hell.
It’s an oddly beautiful story. I liked it, and I’m going to get you extra drunk for this.
thank you. and, score! so, when ARE you coming to get me drunk, anyway?
Great question. If I win that ‘Win a movie star trip to LA!’ competition, then soon. If not, then a little later.
how can we rig this contest???
Don’t worry. I’ve got people on the inside.
Or, you know, I could work real hard, save up, and fly over on the product of good, honest labour. But as if I’m going to do that.
If I haven’t told you: (A) I see way more fallen eggs and fetal birds than I used to, and (B) these things always remind me of you.
once you start looking, they really are kinda everywhere. it’s bizarre. i’m glad they make you think of me.
She gave birth to five live children.
She gave death to one who died.
now i feel awkward. someone needs to produce something sparkly and pretty now. i love you, mom.
I love it. I fucking love it.
it fucking loves you right back, duke.
I’m honored.
I wish I could say more, but it almost feels better not to cite the details, those things in particular that I love.
But it’s timeless, that I’ll say. It feels like it could’ve been written a hundred years ago, or fifty years ago, and it could also be written in the future — assuming there is one.
you’re making me feel special again….
It feels better not to cite the details. ~Another thing that rings true on this particular day.
Lenore, I love reading your posts. Great writing, yeah yeah I’m sure you know. What I like is that it’s not necessarily common what you share, and it seems from the heart.
Mary, that means a lot. Thank you. and i never turn my back on compliments, so any time you (or anyone) would like to feed my giant ego, by all means, go for it!
Private details are the things that make me glow from the inside.
I have a treasure in these things *sigh*
It’s been a long week and it’s just starting.
Who is taking over he next bottle of wine ?? -_-
So the menu to feed giant ego:
compliments, crisp white wine or a jammy red, scant details, sparkly pretty champagne. Some good bread, some camembert, tart fruits.
Picnic on the porch in about 20 minutes.
hmm. now i understand your obsession with dead birds. thanks for sharing…it’s still a little weird though.
i wrote it just so you’d understand my obsession, my lovely nina.
p.s. i hope there’s lettuce at free sandwich day this week.
i appreciate that yo.
don’t hold your breath, i’m pretty sure we’re gonna be lettuce and tomato free.
Pretty Lenore. Pretty bird.
Making me cry, yet again.
they are pretty little birds, aren’t they? i love them so much.
Great story. A little sad but still awesome.
you are awesome and not sad at all!
Lenore, if I were ever meet you in person, I’d be very afraid you’d just reach into my chest and rip my heart out, Temple of Doom style. Because you just did it on a damn web page.
Also, that piano teacher sounds like the villainous characters that used to pop up on Little House on the Prairie.
oh no! i will put your heart back where it belongs when i’m finished sucking the blood from it, don’t worry.
i will also buy you a loofah.
Hell, my heart’s so withered and dried out at this point it could be used as a loofah. I’m afraid you won’t find much nourishment there.
Lenore,
Hard to know what to write in response to this. I’m glad you bury these babies. They deserve that, and I can’t think of anyone with better hands to do it.
You didn’t kill anyone or anything. Oh, and your piano teacher was evil, not you. Not ever you.
oh, thank you, but i promise, i’ve been evil before. just ask my mom. i just wasn’t evil in this story.
lovely.
like you.
I wanna strangle that piano teacher with a piano string.
Lovely piece, Lenore.
I bury live birds. (Is that weird?)
it depends on the particular breed of bird. some birds like to be buried alive, from what i understand.
birds are hard to understand. except for parrots, because they talk.
Myna birds, too, speak. I read in some book somewhere….
someone told me recently that crows can speak too, that you can teach them just like parrots. i don’t know if that’s true, but i guess it makes sense; like the raven in edgar allan poe.
i can’t imagine who told you that.
I don’t know who told you that Ben, but it is true. Crows can speak. And they’re way cooler than parrots.
i hate to argue, autumn, but nothing is cooler than a parrot. or, at least, nothing was cooler than my parrot. what i mean is, i miss my parrot. maybe this is the wrong forum for this.
this is exactly the forum for this.
My girlfriend was once blamed by her mom for killing her piano teacher. The mean teacher had a heart attack after practice and died. I don’t think my girlfriend was with her when the teacher died though, luckily. Otherwise, I imagine she would have been arrested and sentenced to 800 years in prison for sassing her piano teacher to death. Hard times. Hard times.
how bizarre and inverted. your poor girlfriend! heart attacks happen! they just do.
Lenore, this is beautiful. I’m glad the little birds give you peace.
I hate that your horrible piano teacher made you feel that way. What an awful woman! Someone should have slapped her. If you’d like, I’ll slap her. Just point me in her direction.
i’m sure she’s long dead by now. or maybe she’s not. sometimes i think that anyone who was an adult when i was a kid must be dead, but i suppose that doesn’t make sense. either way, i’m sure she’s just confused and scared and probably punishes herself enough to make up for whatever she’s done.
but thanks for the offer.
You know, I think that way too sometimes…once, before my brain could react to what my big mouth was saying, I blurted out “Wow, I thought you had died years ago! You were, like, 100 when I was a kid, weren’t you?” Needless to say, hilarity did not ensue.
There was a dead baby bird in our driveway recently. Someone added to the mess by running over it with a car. Was it dead before or after it was flattened? I don’t know. Your story reminds me that I need to keep pondering.
you should bury it….
I think it got ground into bird dust. Or the wind thought it was a leaf and carried it away. That or a cat gobbled it. It disappeared.
This is almost a poem, really. Or maybe it is. Well done.
As for the subject — and I won’t waste time on the dried up c-word of a piano teacher — I think that death is just a change in state, like water to vapor, and that you have had, your whole life, an ally and champion on the Other Side. Not to get all New Age-y on you.
And shit — this is the thousand word thing? Mine is so lame compared to this. I’m not even gonna make the coffee book. Sheesh.
i’m positive that anything you wrote could never be lame. anyway, let’s see it already!!!
No matter the timbre of your pieces, you always move me. You are a joy, Lenore.
aww thanks. i don’t think i’ve ever been called a joy before.
You’re a goddamned joy, okay? Get used to it!
oh no, i’m very comfortable being called a joy. i was just saying that this was the first for me. but i’ve always secretly thought it was only a matter of time.
Oh vulnerable Lenore breaks mine heart…
I was maybe seven
at the convalescent home
the old nun called me to her
chair
she was old so old
but her eyes
were crystal blue
and alive
“Do you believe God?” she asked
“Yes ma’am”
“Not believe in” she said.”Believe”
I nodded again
She nodded back
and there was nothing but
blue eyes
“Then I will tell you a secret”
Her weathered hands grasped
my hands
heavy dry and warm
and she said
“Nothing good ever dies”
nuns. i just don’t understand their choices. but that one sounds like a real nice nun.
i don’t know that nothing good ever dies. i think lots of good things die. but i also don’t think that matters much.
Me neither but I like the thought
that you never lose anything good,
that it just waits for you somewhere else
and that if and when I die
just the bad stuff like impatience
and intolerance dies
and all the good stuff
lives on
I hope she’s right
in that regard.
i hope so too. though, if impatience goes with death, there goes about 98% of me. heh.
Excellent piece.
I had a similar experience when I was a boy, except it involved a baby mouse and a glue trap. Is that similar? I dunno. It was horrible. I didn’t know what to do. Couldn’t bury it.
Anyway–wonderful stuff.
i think you should do a TNB post about the baby mouse.
Lenore, the depth and precision of your words take my breath away.
But not in a crazy cat-people old wives tale sort of way.
The good way.
Bravo.
haha, i think that’s the first time anyone ever used the word “depth” to describe something i did. lots of firsts going around here. thank you!
Very powerful and beautiful story, Lenore.
and your hat is also powerful and beautiful. you and rich need to have a hat contest of some kind.
Thanks. And unless it’s a “Which Hat Makes Me Look More Homeless?” contest, my hat would kick the shit out of Rich’s hat in a hat contest of any kind. You better know it, Rich!
What an opening sentence! And what a tender, beautiful tale. Your writing is gorgeous.
(Your piano teacher sucked - I wonder what treacherous secrets lurk in her dark heart in order to say crappy things like that to a child!)
thank you! and yeah, she wasn’t very cool. but maybe it was just a bad moment for her. now i feel bad, like i’ve created a villain. she was probably just ill.
So you’ve created an illain?
hahahaha let’s make out.
Done!
Annnnnnnd now I want to go back in time and punch your piano teacher.
It’s been strange as I’ve grown up, to reflect on all of the truly fucked-up adults who were allowed to “teach” us as children. Without a lifetime of perspective under our little-kid belts, we took their word as gospel and didn’t then realize they might possibly be damaged individuals. It’s sometimes disturbing to look back on what we thought was true, only to realize it was often sick, evil and false.
This was beautiful and touching writing, Lenore. You made me cry, but in the good, thoughtful way. xoxo.
back then everywhere was short of teachers and it was the job to get because you’d always have employment. so maybe they just took this lady even though she was a bit nuts and crossed their fingers. now all the teachers are getting fired even though we need more than we had before the layoffs. so no one learns anything except for the traumatic things that stick with them.
expect a lot more stories like this from the younger generations.
Oh, man. So nice.
Your sensitivity, and capacity for exploring and reasoning things out, at such a young age is quite extraordinary, Lenore.
Fuck that piano teacher.
yes, i was quite brilliant. note past tense.
I sometimes forget that you have this skill in your pocket. You’re so goddamn talented.
blush!
That was absolutely gorgeous Lenore.
Everything I’ve read here lately is evocative to the point of unearthing my own memories. And with that thought, maybe I really will start to write a thing or two.
please do! that’s the best thing i could hear from you. write write write!
I had a miscarriage last week. Your story brought me some solace today.
Thank you.
i’m touched to hear you say that.
you know, when i was a little kid, i used to tell myself that the reason my twin sister died was because God was casting a play in heaven and he needed a baby to play a role…my twin sister was the best for the play, so he cast her.
karyn,
I mourn your baby with you.
I am so deeply sorry.
Dead without ever having been born.
I love the mind of little Lenore. If you could forgive the trees, you could forgive yourself. Of course. Not that you needed to be forgiven! Ugh, that horrible, horrible witch-woman piano teacher and her poisonous ideas.
Thank you for this.
well, i suppose we all need to be forgiven at one point or another, whether it’s only in our minds or the culpability exists in reality. either way. and thank you!
I gave death to a baby this month. I never told you I was pregnant, but after this story I can tell you that it died without being born because I trust you to understand what it means.
i’m so sorry, Rachel. you know what? as alias & tarsier say in their music, every plane draws a white line. and as i add, that white line doesn’t ever really disappear, it just scatters in the sky. <3
rachel g,
I am so, so very sorry that your baby died.
I am so, so sorry.
Irene,
thank you so much. it feels good to have the grief understood and validated. I’m sorry for the one you lost as well.
Lenore- because you’re so funny, this hit me twice as hard.
I’d like to say something worthwhile, but all I can do is add my voice to the chorus: love this, love you.
i love you, too! thanks for saying i’m funny. sometimes i think i’m just annoying. ha.
Wow, Lenore - what a powerful post. Gorgeous writing. Kissing the air.
i’m kissing the air right back atcha.
It’s not fair that you write so beautifully.
thank you! i think it’s unfair that you have to pretend to be nice to people just cause you’re from the south.
Now I have to be careful because when I say something nice to people, they’re going to think I’m just being southern.
Well, this is going in the front of the book as soon as Brad inks the deal! Hard to read, heart-wise. What beautiful comments you got from women who’ve lost babies. Wow.
I’m always struck by the fact you’re not psychotically ill after being burdened as a child with the false knowledge you’d killed your identical twin. People go bonkers for lesser traumas.
Because you’d written about this previously I thought of you when the previews for that awful horror movie Unborn came on. And I saw one the other day - you know which one I mean?
haha, and there’s all kinds of psychosis in my genes! maybe it just hasn’t shown up yet. it’s possible i have yet to lose it.
that movie…the Unborn or whatever. it pissed me off something fierce. i didn’t see it, obviously.
where’s your 1000 words, MLP?
what a great piano teacher. I love her, even though, of course, as Simon says, she’s a bitch. Beautiful piece.
yeah, i kind of love her in a sick way, too. after the facts are laid out, you kind of have to thank everyone who made you who you are.
Amazing post, Lenore. You had me from the very first sentence. Yeah. Absolutely amazing.
rich, coming from you, that means everything.
Excellent writing as usual, Lenore! Your description of the bird was perfectly minimal. Brilliant.
why thank you mr. david s. wills.
Lenore, you’re incredible. Your piano teacher, on the other hand, was an incredible bitch.
your vote allows us to reach a consensus. finally!
It’s the little things, Lenore, that make me wish I lived closer to the world you inhabit, all the way across this country.
Never let someone tell you that a story about a dead baby bird is incapable of making people cry. I’m teary for reasons I probably won’t ever understand…and it makes me appreciate the tale - and you - even more.
shit, i wish you lived closer, too! i could always use more friends. mine are starting to recognize my behavior as annoying. took them along enough.
Lenore, I read this several days ago, but was unable to comment at the time.
I am still unable to comment because this story is too special and anything I have to say to you about it is just going to be a cheap representation of how amazing I think it is, and how amazing I think you are.
Damn it.
jess, i feel the same about you. and i always will.
Lenore,
A beautiful piece. A power that creeps-up, pulls the rug from beneath the reader. Sort of a sad, veiled ode to loggers…
thank you!