My Airport Friend

This little fellow seranaded me (beautifully) for a good ten minutes while I sat munching on my delicious, fresh (a rarity!) chicken salad sandwich in the Denver Airport yesterday. When he started, I kept looking around for the source of the tweeting, thinking that maybe the delirium of late-night painting and packing was finally getting to me. But then I looked straight up.

And when I finally found him, I couldn't stop staring. He was a pretty little thing, with snowy feathers and a voice for the stage. No one else around seemed to notice (or care) that he was there. They just kept eating and talking on their bluetooths and checking their watches incessantly so they wouldn't miss their flights. No one paid any attention to the little bird trilling his heart out in the high rafters above their heads.

It was tragic.

I mean, it's obvious that he was able to find a way in, but I doubt he'll be able to find a way out again. So there he sat, trapped inside a huge airport terminal, warbling to harried travelers and irritated fast food workers. No one looked up. Even his tiny last gift to the world was being completely ignored.

A bird dying in an airport-- a modern marvel of metal and concrete where wingless mammals have learned to defy gravity-- strikes me as incredibly ironic.