[Creative Nonfiction | Issue 10]

jessica settergren

Death takes a nuthatch

My cat caught a bird on the deck this morning. The commotion got the dogs’ attention,
who got my attention, and that’s how I found myself in the middle of a murder. The bird, a little,
white-breasted nuthatch, hopped and pecked and flapped and dodged, desperate to evade the
cat’s quick paw swipes and snapping jaws. She bled from the first bite around her neck but
fought like a heroine to escape. I swept her into my hand and held her against me, gently so I
didn’t squish her. The puncture wounds left blood on my fingers.

I shooed the dogs inside. It was twenty degrees, and my bare feet left melted prints on
frosted boards. The cat, offended that I’d interrupted his meal, meowed in protest, and jumped
onto the rail to investigate. I held the bird out of reach. Resigned, he stalked into the house to
watch from the kitchen table, the least appropriate place for a hunter to bathe after getting bird
blood in his fur.

The fragile life in my hand breathed so fast her feathers trembled, and her heart fluttered
wildly against my palm. She lay there in the warmth as I smoothed ruffled feathers. Her eyes
closed but her chest still rose and fell, and blood no longer dripped from her wounds, so I hoped.
I couldn’t help the bird, or the hope.

My reddened feet burned with cold. When I set her in the sun on the deck rail my fingers
seemed huge and nowhere near careful enough to hold such a delicate body. She didn’t open her
eyes, but she still breathed. For a life to come this far and fight so hard only to die seemed
impossible. I wanted to save her.

Any bird her size faced danger everywhere, every day. She survived a bitterly cold and
snowy Minnesota winter that tried to freeze, starve, and beat her to death with fierce winds and
plummeting temperatures. She survived the predatory birds swooping down from above, death
on the wing, to snatch songbirds from branches and sky. She survived the dogs, cats, foxes, and
coyotes hunting her from below. Her heart could keep going, I was sure of it. She was a survivor.

I grabbed socks and boots and kept my furry predators in the house so I could hold her
again. She hadn’t moved. Maybe she was just exhausted. What can a human with clumsy fingers
and no veterinary training do to save a creature the size of a tennis ball? Can anything help when
fangs sink deep? What stitches even work on a bird? I scooped her back into my hands and stood
still, keeping her protected from the bitter wind, so she’d feel only the sun and warmth. The local
crows watched us, rudely calling to each other about the futility and foolishness of our scene.

I know life and death struggle. I know screaming “Fuck You” at the toilet because chemo
made me throw up until nothing but blood from my scraped and raw throat comes up. I
remember how exhausting it is to fight. Nobody talks about that, how the energy trickles in
slower than molasses after anti-cancer poison has ejected it all. That fatigued nihilist feeling
whispers and seduces with giving in and warm sleep, almost irresistible. Almost.

She screamed her defiance at the cat while she fought. I get that. Now the battle was over
she could recover, get on with her flying life. She might tell her mate about the trauma and teach young birds caution while they hide seeds in tree bark for winter. Or she would not. But she
would not be alone, either way. I kept her warm and tried to project comfort and safety in a
blanket of quiet whispers.

Her quick, shallow, panicked breaths deepened, and slowed. Her heart didn’t beat against
my palm in wild desperation. It didn’t beat against my palm at all. Her beak opened and closed,
opened, and closed, opened...and closed, as she took her last breaths before she stilled. I felt her
little body go limp in my hand, her tiny talons curling against my rough skin. Her eyes never re-
opened.

I wonder if birds have their own version of Death. Did he come with a flutter of feathers
and bring the soft release of her soul, so she can fly unhindered by dangers above and below? Do
bird souls crowd the afterlife’s trees and skies in raucous joy without need of innate fear? I hope
so. I took her to the edge of the woods to a tree felled during recent winter storms and laid her on
a bed of leaves in the sun, where the sky could see her. Where her mate might be able to say
goodbye. I cried. I am not ashamed to cry for one who lost her fight, and for those left behind.

Evidence of the battle remained under the wrought iron bench on the deck. Downy grey
feathers clung to the damp wood under the bench. A leftover dark brown fall leaf held two ruby
drops of blood. I swept the area before the kids got home from school, partly to protect them
from the sadness of the scene, and partly because the events were mine to witness. Clearing the
epic fight for survival with a broom sent both leaf and feathers into the air, where the gusty wind
took them up into a bright, cold sky. Maybe whatever gods exist for birds watched me shelter
their daughter as she took her last breaths and wanted to give back what she’d lost.

The cat licked my hand when I went inside. The cat who spent hours lying on my chest or
belly to purr when chemotherapy made me want to die was an arbiter of another’s death today.
Unbothered, he found a sunny spot on a chair and curled into an innocent, furry ball to nap the
morning away, because he didn’t do anything wrong. A cat’s nature is to hunt. A nuthatch’s
nature is to desperately avoid becoming prey. Maybe I should’ve just let the cat finish the job
and saved her the pain, but nobody deserves to die terrified and alone. Nature is harsh and unforgiving. I choose compassion.

__________

About the author

Jessica Settergren's work appears in Midstory Magazine, Renaissance Magazine, and The World History Encyclopedia. Her cancer self-help book for Pagans was recently acquired by Crossed Crow Books. She lives in the woods in Minnesota with her husband, a horde of excellent step-teenagers, two dogs, and the cat who rules them all. You can find her at www.jessicasettergren.com,