Part II

The Misadventures of Lemony Snicket, O.E.

Part II (please refer to previous post for Part I before reading this most utterly dreadful and dreary tale)

Wednesday, May 25th 2005

Alas, the night was to prove most unfitting for our little Lemony. In the morning, at precisely 7:30 am, my sister shouted the fatal words:“The bird!”I rocketed from my sleeping bag, expecting to find a dead baby.

But here we were surprised: for although Lemony was too weak to gape any more, he had survived the night. We popped some food into his mouth and gradually he regained his strength.

Then my sister made a most disturbing discovery: Lemony was a twin, and he had a home. However, if that might awaken in you the spark of hope that Lemony might go back to his parents, and live to fly as a free sparrow in the Texas skies, brace yourself. For the condition of the nest was such that no baby bird could have lived in it. Indeed, nothing could have lived in it, for nest was completely destroyed.

Beneath the branches of the tree which house the nest was the remains of Lemony’s twin, who had succumbed to the same fate from which we had rescued Lemony. It is quite unfortunate that we should have only found Lemony, and not his twin, for otherwise both might be alive today.

To return to Lemony: my sister discovered that he responded to whistles, and would make feeble attempts to gape upon hearing that particular sound. In the process of whistling to it, my sister and I inadvertently bonded with the little creature. It had nothing to recommend itself. It was quite ugly, really, more like a plucked chicken than the baby birds in the picture books.

This morning, after a night without food--which is actually the norm for birds in the wild--Lemony was even weaker than ever. He stopped responding to our whistles and wouldn’t gape for food. We force-fed him a few times, and then yet another unfortunate event occurred in the short, dismal life of Lemony.As my sister was changing his soiled bedding, he fell from the desk.For such a small creature, a drop like that is akin to plummeting from a cliff.And after his mishap, Lemony Snicket, OE, began the final stages of death.

I am now watching him as I type: poor, shriveled pink creature, barely breathing. His skinny neck is stretched out on a wad of toilet paper.

What was the point? we ask. We spent hours feeding it. We cooked eggs and mashed dog food and ground birdseed to stuff down its gullet. Hours of wasted sleep and precious time, and now...?

There, see--his chest has risen, and fallen--and rises no more. And I, recording secretary Kteck, watched his final gasps with my very own eyes. His pink skin pales; his legs stiffen. Ah, he is dead now.

Lemony Snicket. May 25th, 2005: Rest in Peace

Life is so precious, my friends. Do not take it for granted, not even the life of a baby bird whom no one will miss but two sleep-deprived sisters dabbing tissues at their oddly wet eyes.

Everyone you love eventually dies.......

............ and then it will be your turn.

Part I

Part I

The Misadventures of Lemony Snicket, O.E.
by me

Monday May 23rd the year 2005

This morning, my mom found a sadly disadvantaged baby bird in the garden among the lettuces. It was still in the shell, but the shell was broken and dirty and we had a full view of the bird’s abdomen and little beak. There were red ants crawling over its skin.

My mother bent down with a small sigh of pity on her lips for the dead bird, but when she was bent over she saw that the bird was not dead, but was the only thing one can be if one is not dead, and that is alive.She called for me, and I put down my schoolwork and came to the backyard and looked with her upon the poor little orphaned... egg. I shall call it so because it was not a bird yet, as the shell was still around it, and if the egg had not been broken open we would have called it an egg and not a bird anyway. Therefore it was only appropriate to attach the name: orphaned egg.

We put the OE onto a shovel and brushed off the ants and watched it kick. We both felt pity for the tiny creature and so took it inside, and put it in a Styrofoam cup with a paper towel, and left the cup under a lamp for warmth.Then we watched it, expecting it to die any moment. But it lived, and lived...And is still living.

Late this night, my sister Julia, as she was watching the bird, saw the bird begin to struggle out of the remains of its shell. However, because it was very dry, its skin against the shell had become like tissue paper brushed with glue, and it did exactly what all things brushed with glue do: it stuck.

My sister quickly employed her inventing skills and unfolded two paper clips and assisted the bird out of its crumbling home. My mother intervened at this point to help transfer the creature into a new, better home: a paper towl over a warm plastic ziplock bag filled with water. The plastic bag was my idea..

Soon the little bird began to peep. At first once, then twice, then several times. Then it lifted its head and gaped, a pathetic, wobbly little gape, but there it was...in the universal language of the birds...as clear as the tiny pink tongue waggling in the back of its throat...
FEED ME.

And so we fed it, and made the brave, but unfortunate resolve to get up every half hour to insert boiled egg and bread and sugar water into its mouth.
It is always unfortunate to make resolves, because like New Year’s Resolutions, they rarely last.
In our case, it lasted only until we lay down to sleep and closed our eyes.It is amazing how quickly seven hours can slip by...