She gently placed the dying cardinal, wrapped in a soft rag, in the empty cat food box to take it outside. To end its suffering with the rat trap leftover from last summer’s rodent insurgency in the garage.The bird was gray with sparse patches of blue, crest and wingtips red as oxygenated blood. She placed the bird’s head on the lever and screamed as the trap jumped and flipped the bird on the driveway. The bird spasmed intermittently, for 45 seconds, maybe a minute.
It was her grandfather – also an engineer – who taught her to love birds. And who, when she was still young, gave her the copy of the Audubon book on American birds.
They were hoping for some painless, tranquil end for the cardinal, hoping for some dignity that might come in dying. But the dignity of dying is in death, not the act of dying. Evident in the way a cat toys with its game rather than killing it quick.
Bad kitty, she said, but the cat was still back in the house.
I think it was quick, he said. I don’t think he felt much pain.
This was her husband saying this. Her grandfather had died more than two decades ago.
If any, he added.
Trying to comfort her. But he was lost for words.
She, she said. It was a she.
She, he agreed. I don’t think she felt much pain.
But she didn’t seem to hear him. Instead, she stood over the bird, looking down in its direction, not hearing. She was oriented to something else. As if she was listening for something very distant, yet strangely close at hand. Perhaps listening to something inside her.