"Bye John!"
"Bye."
John turned away from his friends at the gate and strode down the pathway to his house.
It he had just come back from a school exhibition, winning an award for art of all things, and was pondering a question that had been posed to him over and over again.
'What do you want to be?'
Teachers had asked, friends, and his parents most of all. He could never decide; one day he'd feel like being an artist, another a programmer. He just didn't know.
He knew that what he was doing at school was just something to fill time, a hobby, and that what he wanted to do in the future was undecided, but one thing he did know what that he wanted to do something that challenged him.
All of this pondering had blindsided John to the fact that he had walked through the park and was on his road. The only thing that jolted his attention was a ginger tabby cat kneeling on the grass. He had just reached within a few meters of the animal when he noticed a little bird, frantically flapping on the grass.
The bird couldn't have been able to fly just jest as it was not large enough to do so, or, was to injured to do so. He noticed that the ginger tom was ready to pounce and looked at the tom with clarity and horror.
"Leave the bird alone cat!"
Dropping his bag, he knelt down trying to pick the bird up as it fluttered towards his boots. In it's panicked state it only tumbled away from John faster with a cat in tow. Heading for a car.
"Shit!"
This time John grabbed for the cat, who only slinked out of arms reach from the kneeling boy and under the car, following the distraught chick.
"Fuck."
Not sure what to do, John lowered his head sideways and tried to reach under the car for the chick and his hunter, only to look into the baleful eyes of the cat, with no chick and neither nowhere within arms reach as the pavement almost went up to the car door.
John got up and stalked round the car, trying to see where he could rescue the chick from when the chick suddenly fluttered back into the pavement. John could see the cat making it's move and quickly scooped up the bird in two hands, trying to coo to it gently,
"It's alright, little birdie."
With a flurry of movement the chick leapt off of Johns hand and bounced on the pavement, only to be scooped up by the waiting cat, who had dashed off.
Frozen in shock, John could only blink as he realized what happened, before whirling around and weaving though the parked cars, ignoring the funny looks he was getting from those who where leaving the little dead-end road, desperately trying to see where the ruddy cat had dashed of to with its precious cargo.
Finding nothing under parked cars and long green stretches either side, John gave up. By now, he moped, the cat would have killed the chick.
Picking up his bag, he slowly walked the last 40 paces to his house.
'But what if the little bird was alive?'
Opening the door to the flat, he dumped his bag at the door and rushed out into the street again. Starting on the other side he looked under each car, slowly looking for that dash of ginger.
There. Slowly stalking over the road was the ginger tom, carrying a small grey and yellow chick.
John ran over to the duo as the cat dropped the bird, which he immediately scooped up and inspected. It was bleeding from the hip and he had no idea what to do.
Deciding the best course of action was to go home, even though he had briefly considered going to the vet, which was only a 3 minute walk, as the bird was too small and probably in shock.
By the time John had reached the front door, the little birdie was closing his eyes.
"No, no, no no!"
Racing inside and shutting the door, John raced to the kitchen and shooed the resident cat out, yanking a roll of kitchen paper and laying the birdie down on the sheet, waiting.
Nothing.
The eyes had closed and the chest was still. Was it really dead? He carefully picked the bird up and felt the coldness. Another few minutes ticked by and the legs stopped moving easily when he tried to move them. The blood, which was minor had clotted.
Why had the cat done this? Of course it was in its instinct, but as soon as John had come along, he should have been scared of him! The boy who pet him every time he saw the ginger tom. Should have let the bird be.
Should have let it live.
HE should have let it live. Made it live. I he knew what to do. What he should have done, COULD have done.
Slowly John wrapped the towel around the birds body and sat back in the empty kitchen. In an empty flat, devoid of life.
He knew now what he wanted to do. He wanted to make sure that others, no matter how small or big, could live life.
John picked up the parcel on the table and wondered what to do. He couldn't just leave it out, to be ravaged or eaten, to bury it would mean it would be dug up, to burn would be unthinkable. Rubbish it was. The whole event. Everything. Rubbish to rubbish to rubbish.
He wanted to become a doctor.
R.I.P Little Bird.