Strange Errors

Look at the author of Someone Like you.
That is all.

The Silent Bird

I didn't speak yesterday, didn't tweet or post anything on facebook, no answering of the phone and finger signing to answer questions in class and being translated by my friend Lindsey. It was odd because I felt like the great observer. I read everything, I listened to everything, I saw everything, but I wasn't changing any of it. It was almost like being invisible. I was going to write about the Vow of Silence and the way it felt and seemed and everything described above, but arriving at my house I saw a wing poking out of the leaf gutter above my porch. A bird had died, probably by hitting my parents' bedroom window, and then fallen into the pipe with the leaves and the rain. It made me indescribably sad to see, because I love birds and find far too many of them dead.
I put my things inside, got out the stepladder and the rag of one of my swaddling blankets from when I was a baby, which I never use for cleaning because it just seems wrong, but I couldn't think of a better shroud for a bird than one that kept three consecutive babies warm and safe, and then their dolls got dragged around in it and indoor picnics were had on it and it got too ragged to be used again.
I climbed up on the ladder, but I wasn't tall enough to see what I was doing, and it's a deep gutter and the ground the ladder was on was slightly uneven and no one was spotting me and I just couldn't do it. I carefully tucked the silvery, strong feathers over the edge so that my mum wouldn't see, then put the stepladder and rag in the carport and wrote a note to my dad to deal with it, since he's several inches taller. Then I had a panic attack. The birds make me sad, but I take the shovel and dig a hole in the forest a stone's throw from my house, bury the bird and sink an acorn a couple of inches deep over the small animal's grave, so that someday there will be a tree there to guard the poor little thing. But this time, I couldn't bury the bird. The bird was in the gutter and I couldn't get it out and I knew that my father would call me crazy for burying the bird and throw it into the garbage bin with a joke about carbon sequestering. And then I couldn't breathe and my hands were shaking so hard that I couldn't get a glass of water and had to put my face right down to the sink and drink from the tap, trying to get water through my constricted throat, trying to breathe. Slowly, it went away and I went back to my business, but that little bird is still in my thoughts. My dad said it was dealt with, but I was too afraid to ask what he'd done with it, too afraid that I knew the answer.
Poor little bird.

Power Outage

There was a power outage. I was feeling all smug and planning on blogging FROM THE POWER OUTAGE because of my magical laptop. It wasn't until I had booted it up when I spotted the flaw in the plan; the magical voodoo wireless box wouldn't work without electricity. I am so dumb.

Have a great day, and try to do clever things than seen above. I should not be anyone's role model.

Unexpected Baptism

I meant to write about all sorts of other things, but something extraordinary just happened to me, and I have to write about it before it disappears.

I was biking home from school, thinking about this new, seemingly impossible assignment in Lit, an essay on the one thing in your life that connects people, that makes you feel like a little kid, the most joyful and challenging thing that runs you, and I am so panicked, you would not believe. At the same time, I was admiring the way the almost white sunlight was making the wet concrete gleam and the yellow leaves on the trees and ground glow. I crossed the bridge in the park, slowed down between the two trees, twisted around the corner, and yanked on the brakes. In the middle of the grass sports field, the sprinklers were on, four in all, spraying water every which way in the wettest month of the year, and that's saying something for Vancouver.

I rode my bike through the gate, leaned it against the fence post, setting my bag and sweater with it, out of reach of the sprinklers. I intended to let some of this odd water fall on my face in a light mist, to cool me off from the ride and the anxiousness of this time in my life. First, the mist hit me, then got a bit stronger. Droplets beaded on my shirt, my hair, my eyelashes. I took a step closer, then another, chasing the sprinkler as it turned its slow circle. Eventually I ran under it and let it wash over me, soaking me to the bone. It was like a baptism, like all my sins and worries and fears and angers washing away in the rainbow water. I felt this immense sense of relief and happiness, and I raised my arms above my head and laughed like a little kid, letting it all fall on me and then off again.

It was only a minute until the sprinklers turned off of their own accord, and I realized that I didn't care that the guys in the skate park were watching me, no doubt talking about how high I was (I wasn't. I don't do drugs.) I got back on my bike and came the rest of the way home, water dripping off my face.

My jeans were so wet that they literally fell off as soon as I unzipped them and my hair is still dripping down the back of my neck as I write this, but I still don't care. Everything just seems so much better now.