The sudden thud in an otherwise quiet house startled me. It came from the back patio door, and I quickly deduced that a bird had flown into the glass. Sure enough, a small sparrow sat dazed just outside the door in shock from the sudden impact. I watched it for a few moments, and felt the urge to pick up the helpless creature to give it comfort. It was clearly disoriented, but didn't flee when I reached down and cupped it's small body in my hands. It was warm and breathing very rapidly as I stood up to find it a safer place to
recuperate.
It was then that the unexpected happened. My field of vision narrowed, first blurred and then becoming darker from the outside in, as if I were entering a dark tunnel. All sounds became muffled until the only thing I could hear was a steady static drone, like the noise of a raging waterfall just out of sight. Even with the strangeness of these sensations I was calm, and became very intent on watching the small bird in my hands. I could feel its chest expand and contract with every single breath it took, and suddenly became aware of a change in the creature. Time itself sped up, like a cheap
time lapse effect in a B movie. The bird's head went limp, its eyes glazed over, and it's entire body began to squirm with a knotted mass of maggots. Maggot became housefly, and the remains of the bird reduced to feather and bone in the flash of an instant. Feathers drifted away as if lofted by a sudden breeze, and bone became dust, sifting through my fingers like sand in an hourglass. Dust became molecule, and I could sense the
essence and spirit of the creature all about me, a tiny soul freed from a
carnate prison. I rejoiced as the molecules effervesced around me, realizing that as the bird had been set free so would I upon my doom. The particles that define me are the same that had defined the bird, and will exist in eternity. Every creature, every object, every thought and breathe exist as one spectacular universal consciousness, and while the form may change, the essence remains in each of us.
I found myself crying, holding the small sparrow as the familiar sounds of the world around me returned. I released my grip, and the bird took flight, landing on a small branch above and looking back at me with a piercing, quizzical gaze. Had it experienced the same vision that I had? Given the content of the hallucination, I feel it most
definitely had shared the journey. It threw its tiny head back in song, then flew away into the darkening skies of the evening.
Wendell is one of the very few 'intentionally cute' pieces that I have made. It was a fun challenge to apply a sickly, unwholesome skin tone and red swollen eyes while still maintaining a certain quality that begs to be picked up and hugged. Wendell is available for adoption on Etsy with free shipping.
