The day I found him

There was a single, decisive moment when I looked at Cricket, he looked at me, and our eyes met for the first time. It was the moment that determined our fate, but I cannot say exactly when it happened.

It might have been just then, when I found him in the carport. I was headed for the nearby high school track, and I glanced down and caught a glimpse of a dead baby bird.

“Oh, no,” I thought. “A dead baby bird.”

But something made me look again, and I saw that the little bird was not dead. He turned his head, sensing my presence, and cowered in fear. But were his eyes open? Did he see me? I am not sure.

Maybe it was after I collected him and delivered him, as fast as I could, to my extra bedroom – safe, warm, no predators. Maybe then he opened his eyes? I took some pictures, but in the pictures his eyes were closed.

Perhaps it was when I was weighing him on the postage scale – 36 grams. Was that when he looked at me? Maybe it was.

Whenever it was, at that moment, at some moment, when our eyes met, Cricket became my bird. I did not know that he was a starling, and I did not know what to feed him. I did not have a bird cage. But I knew I loved him, and I knew that my condo was about to become his home.