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I totally forgot that yesterday was this website's angsty one-year anniversary. As a sort of celebration, here's another passage from 100 Stories. It's about a bird named Harold. It felt appropriate.

In the old old old house (100+ years) I grew up in, my sister and I had our little play spots: We ran around the living room. We played computer games in her bedroom. We also jumped around outside the house. The house had a row of big fir trees on the east side of the property. Past them, over a little fence, we could look directly into the next property. The easily-pleased two of us were endlessly entertained by a homemade swing right on these trees-- Just a little plank of wood suspended by ropes. I was a small kid, and the plank of wood was little even for me (swinging too long would make my legs go numb).

The land beyond the trees was a big field, never used for much. Sometimes the owners would show up in summer and sell fresh grown fruit and vegetables. Mostly, it just sat empty. In the winter it was cold, brown, and dead. On the other side of the ocean of grass was the church’s watchful spire. I never dared to run into that field out of fear of that church. Its eyes. But at times I was tempted-- Not just by young recklessness, but too the newest resident of the field: A slowly dying animal.

It was a gull, and my sister and I became obsessed with it. We both wanted to help. Mom wouldn’t let us go over the fence (germs or something), even though we discovered the bird on just the brink of death.

Birds were always dying around that town. I remember many: A dead brown bird at the port being feasted on by crows. Hummingbirds killing themselves on our windows, which we felt naively obligated to bury. Dozens of road-kill cormorants on the bridge every morning. But this bird at our fence was special because it wasn’t a gruesome scene… So we didn’t fear it… In fact, we named it Harold. My sister came up with that when she was young and imaginative, although she was quickly growing out of Playtime With Jude.

I have vivid memories that winter of swinging away, away from fighting parents, away from my angsty teenage sister, all while watching Harold dissolve. It was cold, and his body was well-preserved. After some days his body became rock solid, practically part of the landscape. However, over weeks, he started to meld into the ground until his form was unrecognizable. I've seen decomposing animals before, but what really surprised me about Harold was his lack of bones: Probably so light and air-filled that his exhaling corpse smothered them, and they decomposed together.

The last time I ever saw it, it was an unremarkable lump of white paste on the grass. I never touched it, but I could tell the lump's texture was mushy, a papier mache. Not long after all of this I stopped going on that swing. I was getting too big for it anyways.