Nothing lasts forever by lara black
December 23rd, 2007 6:31 PM / Location: 37.775814,-122.4241
at first i felt strange about photographing it. but when would i have a chance to get this close to such an incredibly regal creature again?
it was black as ink, and its plumage was shimmering in the sunshine. its beak curved in a strong line from the place where it met the tiny downy feathers of its face to the spot where its tip rested tentatively on the concrete. a light breeze ruffled the feathers of its wings, lending the illusion of life to its completely inanimate body.
a few flies were dancing around the bird, but if it weren't for them, you might have thought it was just sleeping on the pavement.
it was terrifically beautiful and terribly sad.
19 vote(s)
Lincøln
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Blue
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anna one
5
Burn Unit
5
[BLANK_NAME]
5
The Revolutionary
5
miss understanding
5
Malaysian Eddy
5
Jellybean of Thark
5
The Vixen
5
Flitworth
5
teucer
5
lucky penny
5
JTony Loves Brains
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Charlie Fish
5
susy derkins
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Levitating Potato
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*la nerdrice*
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Not Here No More
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i once picked a dead crow up off the sidewalk outside my bedroom window.
It had been shot by a bee bee gun.
But my father made me throw it in a dumpster.
I remember that it was soft.
Last winter I discovered a dead bird on the side of the building I worked in. I believe it ran into one of the windows. Another staff member and I named him (we decided it was a him), although I can't remember that name now and would check for him from time to time. Then one day, as the last remnants of a little snowstorm melted, we realized he was gone.
I worked in a care home for the elderly once and I fed an old lady her last meal. She was usually very upbeat, but recently she'd fallen ill and unhappy. Eventually she got so bad that I had to feed her with a food-syringe. I went to check on her twenty minutes later and she was dead. Her neck was already solid in the draft from the window. I called the other care assistants and we laid her out on the bed and closed her eyes. I stayed in the room for a moment after they had left and felt the old lady's pulse. I was convinced that I could feel a pulse - but it was mine. I didn't even know this lady, she had lived a whole lifetime that I knew nothing about, yet mine was the last face she saw, the last voice she heard. It still makes me emotional now to think of it.
Hard to follow that, Charlie, but I wanted to add that I, too, found a large crow (or raven? I didn't check the tail), dead, that had been struck by a truck outside of a senior housing facility near my home (sort of a connection there). It lay in the middle of the road, talons up. Folks kept driving around it, which I thought was silly.
I was in a hurry to get to work, but I stopped anyway, dodged a couple of cars, and picked the bird up and took him to the side of the road, setting him down beside a hedge in the grass.
He was, indeed, so very soft, particularly about the neck. I requested a feather, took one, and moved on my way.
i think some of these comments are better than my completion. thank you all for sharing these stories.
Beautiful and disturbing.