Bye bye blackbird

On a short walk just outside my school yard, I found a small blackbird lying on the grass. She was covered with cold, shiny raindrops. I noticed immediately that she was no longer alive, her head angled funnily to one side. I walked over to the nearby gas station to get something to cover her with. When I told the guy behind the counter that there was a dead bird outside and asked if he had a napkin or something similar, the customer behind me laughed and said: ‘Ah! A vegetarian, no?’ I smiled and returned outside with some white paper cloth. I decided to dig a shallow grave for her to rest in. The ground was cold and muddy, and so I struggled to break up the soil. With frozen hands I laid her down in the rugged hole and covered her. I didn’t want to leave without creating some kind of tombstone, so I explored the nearby bushes until I stumbled upon some chunks of mud at a construction site. I grabbed some pieces and put them on her grave. It still didn’t look like a proper burial place, however, so I went to search for a stick of sorts. I found one but it wasn’t large enough to make into a cross and a mere stick just didn’t seem enough. I continued my search and came across a discarded picture. A bit peculiar perhaps, but it seemed fitting. I messed around with a sharp stone, I found just next to it. In my struggle to make it fit I thought of one of my favorite quotes: ‘Only the light and warmth will persist when the darkness comes’.  After a while the torn edges of the picture looked nice again, the paper sticking perfectly to the muddy bricks. I decided that even the smallest effort could make a difference.