Pieters

Maybe I am too soft. Like that time I found that blackbird in our back yard, mauled by a cat. This is – what? – fifteen years ago now? And I tried to kill it, to put it out of its misery, but it just wouldn’t die. I can’t really think about it still, it’s such a horrible memory. I think I got a bit tougher for a while after that – closed off a bit, and didn’t let things hurt me or get close to me. I didn’t like to feel that helplessness and panic like I’d felt when that blackbird’s head had spun back round after I’d tried to throttle it, and the way it just sat there looking at me with its eye fixed on me and its head all lopsided and the flesh and blood showing through the feathers where the cat’s claws and teeth had hurt it. I was still pretty young then, of course.

There was a swan with a broken wing in the field last week, and that reminded me of the blackbird again – brought back those horrible vivid memories. It made me feel very upset, actually – kind of shaken up and sad. You know, like when…well, I don’t really know like what – not like anything I can think of that you might have experienced. But sad and empty, but sort of clear about everything at the same time, as if the thing you’re doing is not really happening to you – it’s more like you’re looking at yourself from outside. And that clarity stays with you as you walk away, breathing in deeply. It’s as if everything else in your everyday life suddenly seems simpler and more manageable. As if you’re ready to take something new on. Funny.

I sat down on a fallen tree trunk, quite close to where the swan was, but not so close that I would frighten it. I just sat and looked at it, feeling sad, knowing that there was nothing I could do. The swan was sort of folded up into itself with its neck swept around and its head facing backwards, but its eye was looking at me. The broken wing was stretched out on the stubbled edge of the field, the feathers very white against the brown earth. The swan looked as if it was trying to shrink away from the world, to hide itself inside itself, as if it were embarrassed or ashamed, and didn’t want to be seen.

It still felt strange to be sitting there, doing nothing, just looking. I thought about going over to the swan, maybe trying to pick it up and move it closer in under the hedge, or between the tree trunk and the bushes, where it would be more sheltered, but I knew that it was just going to die anyway, wherever it was, and I thought that if it was left a bit more exposed it might die more quickly – which would be the kindest thing. It didn’t seem right to kill it myself, even though I had the shotgun with me, so it would have been easy to do. So I just left it to die on its own.