Escaped Energy

Where do you find peace?

The longer humans live on Earth, the rarer peace can be.

-

When I was a child, we had a wooden bird house with a flapper on top.

It made it easy to clean the nest from the previous year, because birds build new nests annually. My grandmother nailed this one to a tree and for the first time, there was a family within.

I was curious to see the birds so I climbed the tree and opened the flapper.

Inside was a tip mouse resting atop two eggs bundled in its nest. I desired a close look.

 I wrapped my tiny fingers from both hands around the mother bird, and stole her.

The eggs were grey and brown speckled, but shiny. Mother bird chirped in anger,

But I did not bring the bird back. Instead, we walked along the edge of the front lawn where blackberry bushes grew. Then when we reached the end of the lawn where the woods continued,

I showed the bird my favorite place that made me happy called Leaf Heaven. It was a spot where every Autumn the wind would sweep most leaves from the lawn and bring them here.

I thought the bird was happy as well.

When returning the bird to its nest, walking to our back porch with the brick way,

the bird bit my finger. I remember throwing the bird against the brick because I was shocked, not hurt.

I felt so sad, I began to cry. And when I picked it up, a driblet of blood spewed from its mouth. I quickly ran to the bird house, climbed the tree, and placed the bird back on top of its eggs, hoping I had not killed all three.

I checked a day later, the bird was dead.

Never again did a family of birds live in that birdhouse. Year after year, my grandmother checked. And never did I tell her what happened.

From that day, I vowed never to kill any living thing and love everything for what they are. And to this day, I’d like to think animals understand me better than humans ever will. Animals are mostly peaceful creatures.

-Jasper Quince