The Dead Bird - Yesterday

In my head, a stony path leads to the dead bird.

“Bury me,” it asks me and, in the angles of its broken limbs, its reproaches writhe like worms.

I need some earth.

Dark, heavy earth.

A spade.

I only have eyes.

Two veiled, sad eyes soaked with blue-green water.

I got them at the flea market for a few foreign coins of no value. No one offered me anything else.

I look after them, I rub them, I dry them in a handkerchief on my knees. Carefully, so as not to lose them.

Sometimes, I pull a feather from the bird’s plumage and I draw purple veins on these eyes which are all I possess. Sometimes I manage to blacken them completely. Then the sky clouds over and it starts to rain.

The dead bird doesn’t like the rain. It gets soaked, it rots, it gives off an unpleasant smell.

When this happens, bothered by the smell, I sit a little farther away.

Every now and again, I make promises:

“I’ll go and look for some earth.”

But I don’t believe this, really. The bird doesn’t believe it either. It knows me.

So why did it die here, where there is nothing but stones?

A good fire would do the job as well.

Or some large red ants.

Only, everything is so expensive.

For a box of matches you have to work for months and ants are prohibitively expensive in Chinese restaurants.

I have got hardly anything left of my inheritance.

I am gripped with anxiety when I consider how little money I have left.

At first I spent money without keeping count, like everyone, but now I have to pay attention.

I will only buy what is absolutely necessary.

So no earth, spade, ants, matches.

Besides, when I think about it, what has the funeral of an unknown bird to do with me?