Sad

This one never got to experience flight.  Its life ended even as it was struggling to shed its old skin.

*A Small Death

Today I went back to the tree from yesterday, to see if I might find that cicada nymph's discarded shell.  Sadly though, this is what I found instead:

 

It looks like the nymph did undergo the final molt and emerge as the imago, but it had been so weakened by the arduous climb that its strength gave out and it died without ever taking flight.

How can I be sure it was the same one from yesterday?  While I cannot be absolutely certain, the fact it was the only one left on the tree (I'd plucked the lower shell on the tree to take home);  it had begun to veer toward the right when I left;  and that when I discovered it, it was crawling away from the tree rather than climbing it, could have been a sign of some genetic defect, one that was affecting its navigation faculty and maybe some other functions as well.  Evolution at work, ruthlessly weeding out individuals that are not up to species' standards.

*"A Small Death" is the title of the short story I once wrote, described here.

What The Cat Left Behind

At least, I assume a cat was responsible.  I have seen stray cats -- or perhaps just indoor cats on outdoor patrol -- roaming the neighborhood on numerous occasions, but never a stray dog (or weasels or racoons or any other kind of feral creatures, for that matter).

The sight reminded me of another incident from a couple of weeks ago -- a roadkill pigeon.  But how does a bird get run over by a car?  Was it lying helpless on the road because it was sick or dying, or perhaps already dead?  I'm reproducing those images here also, albeit shrunk down, due to their gruesome nature (feel free to expand them, though).

Related posts:  I Guess "Lucky" Really Isn't The Word...                                 Errant Wing                                                                               Dead Bird                                                                                 Dead Hummingbird

Pigeons In The Cold

HOW I KILLED TWO PIGEONS

I've sometimes wondered where all the pigeons in the parks and plazas go at night.  During the day, there they are, strutting around in their (seeming) thousands, competing for sidewalk space with busy humans, crapping everywhere, then once darkness comes they are -- whoosh! -- gone.  Where do they disappear to?

Once I killed a pigeon by accident -- I was driving up a freeway ramp, accelerating to join the traffic flow, when suddenly this pigeon shot up out of nowhere, tried to fly across in front of my pickup and crashed into the windshield.  I did not bother stopping to check.

And I've killed another one -- deliberately.  At the time I was living in an upper-floor apartment with a balcony.  A small flock of pigeons frequented the roof of a house across the lane, and at one point two of their members -- presumably a mating pair -- decided to fly over and enfeoff my balcony as their private domain.  Every time I saw them cooing around, tramping on the furniture and ducking in and out around all the items that had accumulated there over time, I would get annoyed and chase them away, but they stubbornly kept coming back again and again.  I don't like my private space invaded -- not by people, not by bugs, and not by birds -- and it was as if they were determined to pester me day after day.

Finally, one day I just couldn't take it any more and went after them with a "reach extender" -- you know, one of those devices with a handle and trigger at one end of a shaft and a claw at the other end --

(courtesy of the internet)

because I'd read that pigeons are filthy, infested with external parasites, even that they are "rats on the wing", and didn't want to touch them.  One of them managed to fly off immediately, but the other one was trapped among the large miscellany of objects on the balcony and although I had a time of it, I finally succeeded in grabbing it around its chest.  I held it upside down, then smashed it headfirst onto the parapet, presumably breaking its neck, or skull, or both.  Its mate never came back after that.

Anyhow, as to where pigeons go at night, I guess they "take shelter" like this:

Except, of course, it's no shelter at all.  When I saw them like this in an alley in the late afternoon, exposed to the freezing wind and looking miserably subdued and gloomy, I actually felt sorry for them.

Select related posts:  I Guess "Lucky" Really Isn't...

                                   Errant Wing

                                   Dead Bird

I Guess "Lucky" Really Isn't The Word To Use here...

"Serendipitous", maybe?  That doesn't seem quite appropriate either, but plain old "coincidence" doesn't seem to do the incident justice, somehow.  A "meaningful coincidence"?  Maybe, but I don't really know what meaning to ascribe to it.

Anyway, a few hours earlier I set out on a walk, like I do every day.  As I was passing by this grocery store I heard a dull thud;  I turned to look, and there was what might have been a crumpled hat (I was wearing very dark sunglasses and it tends to filter out details to some degree).  Thinking it might have been dropped by a construction worker working high up, I went and looked closer -- and realized it was a dove.

It was still alive, just barely.  I immediately took out my phone camera, and as I clicked away it closed its eyes (well, its nictitating membranes) and stopped moving -- I had just witnessed the death of the creature.  I should have switched to video mode and recorded its dying moment, I could have kicked myself.

The shop proprietor saw me shooting away, became curious and came out.  I told him the bird had just fallen a moment before.  Then a woman came along, seemed curious and gingerly turned the little body over with her foot.

The proprietor went back inside and came back out carrying a plastic bag, grumbling about something so inauspicious happening right in front of his shop.

I had only once before witnessed the actual dying of a creature.  Many years ago I was renting a room in an old building to use as a painting studio.  One day, as I was climbing the stairs I happened to look out the window over the landing, and saw a butterfly flutter down on the roof of the building next door.  Amazingly, it fell onto its side and didn't move, exept for its upper wing being blown about by the breeze.  I had just witnessed the end of its life.  Some years later, in creative writing class I wrote a short story inspired by the incident.  It was titled "A Small Death" and was about a boy recalling the death of a butterfly while attending his older brother's funeral.  Unfortunately, I don't have it any more.

Here are three close-calls from the past, where I narrowly missed witnessing the dying moment of some creature:  

Dead Bird

Another Butterfly Story

Dead Hummingbird

Setting Sun, Waning Moon

 

Thinking about death.  One particular death.  A sad and lonely death.

Dying is a lonely business.  No matter if we are surrounded by family, or perhaps medical staff, when we go we go alone.  No one can come with us.  It is only "I" -- my consciousness -- that ends.

I have read somewhere that "My Death" is a difficult topic for philosophers to grapple with, in part because it is such a difficult thing to imagine the world without "I".  I think I understand their problem -- *I find it incomprehensible that people would voluntarily end their consciousness.  Even if you imagine the world going on without you, almost inevitably it's still from "your" POV, as if you're watching an imaginary movie.

I remember being something like 10 years old, getting ready for bed one night, when for whatever reason I was suddenly struck by the idea of death as the end of "I".  It was terrifying -- I literally saw in my mind a black curtain in front of me, marking the absolute end of Everything as far as I was concerned.

Sir Fred Hoyle, the astronomer, introduced an idea in one of his SF novels that was an early form of the many-worlds postulate.  He proposed a wall of uncountably numerous pigeonholes, each pigeonhole containing a slip of paper with a message written on it.  The messages are descriptions of moments from one's life.  Every so often a clerk comes along and shines a flashlight into the pigeonholes, and that light is what we experience as consciousness.  The messages also contain information about the other message slips in neighboring pigeonholes, but whereas the messages describing the "past" are correct, the ones describing the "future" are fuzzy, often altogether wrong, because the future is indeterminate.  And there is no limit to how many times the clerk can come and illuminate the pigeonholes, so inevitably our consciousness appears to continue.  This is not unlike how, in the parallel universes postulate, every time a choice is made the universe splits into x and ~x ("not x"), resulting in a continuously branching array of similar but subtly different universes;  x could represent "death", so every time we escape a situation that could have resulted in our death, inevitably our consciousness continues on in the universe in which we survived.  I myself clearly remember three occasions in my childhood when I could have fallen off a cliff to my death (what is it with me and cliffs?).  I suppose in those other universes where I did plummet off those cliffs, things are much the same, except I no longer exist there.

*Well, except perhaps in cases of unbearable torment.  Like being stuck in one of my versions of Hell, as described elsewhere in the blog.

A Wrinkle-Lipped Serpent

Has given up the ghost.  It's clearly been dead for some time, doubtless due to clueless humans repeatedly chasing it away from the "poor pigeons".  Poor pigeon hunter starved to death in the midst of plenty.

Related Post:  The Wrinkly-Mouthed Serpent

A Cafe With A (Possibly) Sinister Name

Only after opening up this photo for editing did I notice that the stairs lead to a cafe called "Morii".  The word looked familiar, but in a somewhat ominous way, as it reminded me of "Memento Mori".  So I looked it up, and interestingly enough, it has two meanings:  either "The desire to capture a fleeting experience" (from the Latin verb "morior" meaning "to die"), which, fittingly enough, describes what I do when I photograph clouds and such;  or -- "I died".  My guess is the latter is not the intended meaning.

Errant Wing

On the way home from the market today, I came across this torn-off wing on the sidewalk.  Pigeon, by the looks of it, so that means now there is a pigeon somewhere out there that's flying around on just one wing, with the avian equivalent of a limp.

Lame humor aside, I am reminded of the legend of the one-winged bird, bi-ik-jo (kr. 비익조).  The males and females are hatched with just one eye and one wing on opposite sides, so that in order to fly they must pair up as one body and forever depend on each other.  It is often used as a metaphor for a couple deeply, inseparably, in love.

Here are a few illustrations I found:

Related Posts:  Dead Bird;  Errant Snowman

An Old Sketch For Something...

A rummage session in a box of old stuff produced this nigh-forgotten little... gem(?) from the bad old days.  Wonder what the heck I was smoking when I drew it--

'Cause I definitely want some more.

Another Butterfly Story

WHAT IS IT WITH ME AND DYING BUTTERFLIES

Tuesday was fairly windy all day.  As I set out for my usual morning walk I could feel the changing of the seasons in the cool breezy air and wished I had thought to put on a warmer jacket.  As I rounded the corner of the courthouse parking lot, I came upon this.

It was a butterfly, apparently in a seriously weakened state and unable to fly.

As I crouched down for a closer look I realized part of its right wing had been torn away.  Didn't I see one just like this once before?  But surely it could not be the same individual --
 

It was helpless against the wind and gripping the sidewalk for dear life was all it could do as it was repeatedly blown down on its side, but still it kept righting itself each time.

I could see its life was nearing the end.  I wanted to keep vigil beside it and watch its final moments -- lend its death on the sidewalk some dignity by witnessing it -- but I could not stay;  I had to get back to the office.  I thought about at least getting it off its obvious location on the sidewalk so that it wouldn't get stepped on or eaten by a bird, but there were no likely places in the immediate vicinity, and placing it in the grass might actually cause it to be eaten by other insects while still alive.  Also, forcibly picking it up when its feet were gripping the cement might cause it additional injury.  I decided to leave it where it was.

In the afternoon I came back to the spot to check on it, half expecting it to be gone.  It was still there, lying dead but untouched.  I picked it up and placed it in the grass by the sidewalk.  Now nature could take its course.

Thanatos

Related posts:  Morpheus;  Hypnos

Cut Short

SOMETHING YOU DON'T SEE ALL THAT OFTEN

A pair of June bugs, busy performing life's most essential function on the sidewalk.  Then some mean-spirited giant comes along and steps on them.  I suppose there are worse ways for one to leave a corpse behind, but in any case I shrank the original image down considerably and cleaned it up just a little so that, even expanded, the image wouldn't be too huge and gross for the more weak-stomached ones among us -- such as myself.

Dead Bird

Today I drove out to Santa Monica beach.  I took a leisurely stroll along the famous Bluffs Trail, and a little while later as I was coming back down the same route I came across a dead bird on the grass.  It wasn't there before, so it must have literally just died there.  Oddly, at the time it seemed pretty much like an ordinary pigeon, but it came out intensely blue in this photograph.  Never seen that in a pigeon before, so maybe it's not a pigeon.

Going Home

Evening conceals

Evening intensifies

Evening saddens

Evening is beautiful

And of course, this blog is evening-colored

I remember some years ago -- it was late summer, I think --  I drove my mother to Loehmann's on La Cienega.  The place was pretty packed, and we had to park on the roof.  When we came out after shopping the hour was growing late and afternoon was segueing into evening.  An unexpected breeze full of cool dampness was blowing, and a light, very light, misty rain began to fall.  It was wonderfully revivifying after the stuffiness of the store below.  I felt the chill and the wetness on my face and arms, perceived the lowering of the light over the world, and the orange and purple hues beginning to tint the sky, and all of a sudden I was filled with a strange excitement, a sourceless joy and -- I don't know what to call it... wonderment? immanence? ions in the atmosphere..? -- and I wanted to tell and shout and scream, jump up and down and run around right there on the roof of the parking structure.  I didn't actually do any of that, and the euphoria passed after some moments, but I remember telling mom that I hoped my afterlife would resemble this moment.

Giants

(ON THE DEATH OF A RELATIVE)

Remote and Majestic

    

Strange and Beautiful

  

The Sun is its Eye

that lights All and sees All

A Memorable Dream

AN UNUSUALLY SERIOUS POST (or maybe not, after the Hell posts)

This is the first time I'm writing about a dream here on the blog without logging it in my dream journal first.  This morning I dreamt that I offended some large organization (either a government or a religious authority or both) and was sentenced to be executed.  Without any ceremony I was immediately led to the place of execution, an indoor spot in a large hallway or some such place, informally designated for that use (in the dream I had previously witnessed another execution in that very spot).  I stood facing my executioner, only a few feet across from him, as he held a handgun at eye-level and took aim at my forehead.

  
Even as I stood dreading the shot I would never remember, I was also glad that the method of execution was mercifully quick and (probably) painless.  In fact, if I were the arbiter of fatal justice in waking life, this could well be the method I would recommend -- quick, cheap, efficient, and with little fuss.  And above all, painless (again probably), since it's over in an eyeblink.

[I really don't think the supposedly humane method of drugging a person to death is all that humane actually -- I mean, the person has to go through a lengthy period of preparation, full of dread and anxiety, and once he's strapped down and the needle is inserted, he lies there for some time, terrified of what's happening to him;  is that really all that humane?  Just because there is little physical pain, that doesn't mean it's not cruel -- mental anguish matters, too.  Of course, one might justifiably object that someone who committed a crime terrible enough to land him on death row SHOULD suffer.  After all, we all have had murderous thoughts about certain people... or is it just me?  But I digress]

I stood there staring at the gun muzzle, wanting to close my eyes but also compelled to keep looking at it -- as much out of curiosity as a sense of bravado.  A Filipina colleague once told me that when Jose Rizal, a national hero of her native country, was executed for rebelling against the Spanish colonial regime, he was stood facing away from the firing squad, but at the last moment he turned around and faced the guns, so that he died facing his killers.  Perhaps I was inspired by the memory of that story.  And I certainly wanted to know what, if anything, was going to happen after I was shot dead.

Unfortunately, as I stood there waiting, I began to wake.  I knew the dream was about to end, and I actually became impatient, wondering what was taking the executioner so long.  And that's how it did end, with a disappointingly unresolved non-outcome.  I hope I have this dream again -- I really am very curious as to what I would have dreamt next.

Dead Hummingbird

This afternoon coworker Binh returned from her break and came over to tell me about a dead hummingbird she'd come across. She knew about my interest in hummingbirds and figured I'd want to check it out. It was just lying in the middle of the sidewalk, as if it had just fallen there, she said.

I half-walked, half-ran to the location, anxious to get there before it was carried off by some cat or dog, or worse, stepped on by an inattentive -- or malicious -- human. And to my relief, as I approached the spot I could see it from across the broad, four-lanes-plus-one road, just a tiny dark speck on the sunlit pavement.

It was lying there with its partly-open wings catching the breeze and causing the little body to roll from side to side repeatedly. I took the shots below, then I wrapped it up in some tissue and brought it back to the office. I placed it in the freezer compartment of the refrigerator in the staff lounge (no worries -- this was done only after it was securely wrapped up, taped closed and rolled up in a small tote bag). After work I brought it home and it's now in my refrigerator, to stay there frozen solid, until I figure out what to do with it.



Actually, this is the third dead bird I've brought home. The first was a pigeon I found at USC when I was a student there. It had flown into a glass door and probably broken its neck. I brought it home, cut off the wings, drained and dried them. They were very interesting and mysterious, looking rather like tools of magic from a shaman's kit. Later I traded one wing for a rabbit skin, which I still have.

The second one was also at USC, but it was one of my professors who found it and informed me of it. And I brought that one home, too, and placed it in the refrigerator and sort of forgot about it, until my mother came visiting one day, and as mothers will, decided to clean her son's dust-laden atelier for him. You can guess what happened -- she got a nice little shock when she happened across the little frozen mummy I'd forgotten about. I don't know what I did with that one. Which probably means I disposed of it after the incident.

Below is what I tried to do for the hummingbird's spirit -- help him on his journey to his destination, wherever that may be, by slightly manipulating one of the photos so that it shows him flying on.

EDIT: It occurs to me that this may be the very bird I saw so often in the tree that I came to think of as the 'hummmingbird tree' over the last few years. If that's the case, my hummingbird photos will most likely have come to the end of the series.

EDIT: I have since learned that hummingbirds are protected by law and one cannot keep them, not even dead ones. I guess I could put it back right where I found it, so nature can take its course (although, most likely something 'unnatural' will happen to it there -- like the gardener chucking it in the trash along with mowed grass...).