Grave Concerns, Part Two

What is it about dead birds that’s so unnerving? I grew up in a small town in the South, and seeing dead animals is nothing new to me. All manner of fauna could be found smushed along our rural country roads. Smelly? Oftentimes. But not as unpleasant on a visceral level as seeing a dead bird.

For the longest time I assumed maybe it was just me that felt this way, but then I heard an Eddie Murphy comedy album and he talked about terrorizing young girls when he was a child by threatening to put a dead bird on them. It was comforting to know that I wasn’t alone. I at least shared a phobia with the three-year old girls of the world.

I was jogging this past Saturday morning, listening to some old school club music*, and feeling very self-satisfied. Here I was doing something positive for my health while the rest of the world recovered from their hangovers. The sun was shining, the sky was blue, and life was good. Suddenly I spied something directly in my path. It was a dead bird. Even though there was no turntable in sight, it was as if the needle had scratched and the music had stopped. It was horrible—just a compact pile of feathers and claws jutting out at odd angles. To my gay sensibilities it looked like a drag queen who had perished in some unfortunate sky-diving accident. The remainder of my run was haunted by the spectre of that feathered carcass.

As I finished my run, I tried to ascertain what it was about dead birds that freaked me out. Death itself doesn’t really bother me. And I like birds, as a general rule. I don’t think I’d want one as a pet—they are totally messy animals—but I like seeing them out in nature. Many of them are quite beautiful. I think that’s where the shock derives: how can something so beautiful in life look so unsightly in death? It’s as if, in the mere act of succumbing, everything that makes a bird so beautiful goes haywire. For the most part, you don’t see that anywhere else in the animal kingdom. Fish float upside down. People just turn grey. Birds die and suddenly it’s feathers and beaks and claws in complete disarray.

I haven’t decided if the fault lies with the bird, or with the feathers. Just in case, though—I need to leave some funeral instructions for dressing my corpse. If they have a viewing before my eco-burial, ABSOLUTELY NO FEATHER BOAS.

*”Kickin’ in the Beat” by Pamela Fernandez, if you must know. I DARE you to be unhappy when you listen to this song. It’s NOT possible.