AN: I'm not really sure if this could count as a fanfiction, but I'm going to post it here anyway. This was an assignment I had to do for English class last year, where I had to pretend that I was Holden while at the same time writing about a personal memory.
Disclaimer: I do not own Catcher in the Rye! It all goes to J. D. Salinger!
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I saw this pigeon once outside a hotel. As a little kid of nine or something, this was very cool, because the bird was only three feet from the door. It wasn't making an effort to fly away or anything. It just sat there.
It was a cute little thing too, the bird.
By this point, my friend, we had spent the night at a hotel instead of crashing at one of our houses for some goddamn reason, hadn't seen the bird. People never stop to look down at the ground. I don't see why
they don't just look down. They could be stepping all over some crummy trash and not notice it till their shoe started screaming at them with all the crazy smells. So, here's what I do: I get my friends attention by
poking her shoulder, not too hard, I don't want to be mean. She looks over at me, not down at the ground though, but who would? When someone gets your attention, you look at them, not some random
goddamn piece of ground. I point at the bird. I know not to talk too loudly and scare the bird. We're both feeling happy at the sight of the bird. My friend gets the attention of her mom, and the woman takes a
look at the bird. Here is where the memory goes stale; it's ten years old at least, the memory, so it's not going to be great because I've already forgotten most of it. Eventually, one of us realizes that something
is wrong. The pigeon is sitting all funny. Someone states that the poor thing is hurt, probably flew into a car too fast or something. I'm all sad now. The bird is really small and helpless, and such things shouldn't
be left alone when they're hurting. One of us, my friend or I, had the brave idea to get some bread or crackers for the bird. The hotel has just stopped serving their breakfast, says my friend's mother. We're at a
loss, my dear friend and I. We don't understand why we can't just get a hotel worker to come by and at least see what's wrong with the bird. I remember getting all worked up. I could be a very emotional kid at
things like that. I've never liked to see things get hurt, especially when there's nothing that you can do about it. Much to my displeasure, we have to go. Either the three of us, my friend her mother and I, are
going back to their house, or they're driving me to meet up with my parents. This is probably why we never stayed at an actual house: my friend and I, in this point in time, lived about three hours away.
Regardless of the real reason, we were checked out and blocking the front door to the hotel. People were sort of shoving past us with all of their suitcases. They had places to go to, and they were too busy to
stop and look at the ground to see the poor animal. The lone mother figure of our group, mine was back home, knew that some comforting was in order. Mothers are so smart; they could tell if a kid was upset
even if they had their eyes covered. She said that the bird would be alright. The bird would be fine, it just needed some rest. Neither of us believed her for a second, but it felt better to hear those words from a
trusting adult, even if they were phony. We were feeling a little better, so with a final glance at the doomed bird, we picked up our suitcases and walked away. I really wanted to take the bird with me. Birds could
be sick and you wouldn't know though, at least that's what I have been taught, so I left the bird behind. We load our bags in the back of the car, shut the trunk, and get into the seating area of the car. Everyone
has a window seat, and mine hosted a perfect view of the hotel's front door. I'll bet I had my face shoved against the glass until the hotel was gone from my sight. It's most likely going to be a long drive to
wherever we are going in the car, so we gear up with pillows and blankets to slump against the stiff walls of the car to win back the sleep we lost from waking up too goddamn early to leave the hotel. The driver
wasn't able to do this though. She had to drive the car, after all. I look out my window and up at the sky. We're moving too fast to get a good look at the ground. A car is one of the only places, when they're
moving, that you'll never get a good look at the ground. The sky seems to move half as slow as the speed you're going, and it's about the worst thing a kid with motion sickness via cars can look at for long
periods of time. It really is. I'm about to give up and close my eyes before I regret it and possibly trash the car with my breakfast, when I see something moving, matching pace with the car. I thought we were
doing at least fifty on that road, so seeing a pigeon was pretty shocking. I immediately assumed that this bird, healthy and very alive, was the same bird from the hotel. Reality and common sense kicked in a few
seconds too late, but I still made myself believe that this was the helpless and dying bird from earlier.
At least I could pretend that the pigeon made it, even though its fate looked pretty bleak for a moment, and that moment seemed to stretch on forever.