one of my favorite newspaper columns...

A terminal case of two birds

23,24,25
I’m sitting in the airport terminal. The room lives up to its name today because a bird is caught inside. I see its flight as a fast shadow against a wall of windows. As I wait, I count 25, no 26, futile flights from one side of the room to the other. It seems to know the route now – from side to side, avoiding lights, air ducts and exit signs. It flies again…back and forth.
27,28,29.
I sit and wonder if anyone sees it and realizes the futility of its short flying life. Where did it come from? Is it a rogue bird that left its nest in a fit of rebellion against a mom who forced it to eat a diet of worms when it yearned for a life of grain? Is it a bird that just didn’t watch where it was going and make the fatal mistake of entering a building named terminal?
How many people have approached the airport staff to explain something they already know?
30,31,32,33.
“Kevin, do you see the birdy? You see it flying around?”
Kevin says, “Cool”, and returns to video game world. People point, mostly children and then back to texting, last minute phone calls and, for the older people, reading books. They all sit, waiting for someone else to do something.
34,35
I sit and wonder if a bird could survive in this terminal. There’s a one inch piece of bagel that lies on the floor. It could be a meal for the tiny aviator. I’m not sure how it will get water. While we humans leave a trail of snack food detritus, we don’t leave water lying around. Perhaps it could tip over a cup of coffee. I’d like to see its flight after a couple sips of Starbucks.
There is a certain irony here. A bird trapped in endless flight in a building named terminal where people wait for flights.
45,46,47
The bird suddenly changes its flight pattern – perching on an air conditioning duct. I try to will it to escape through the holes. I’ve seen it done in movies – escape through the air ducts. But the bird returns to its original flight pattern.
52.53.54.55
Metaphors flood my brain – the futility of life in the modern world, NO EXIT by Sartre and Hope is Thing with Feathers. First and last to fly? The flight to nowhere? A way out on a wing and a prayer?
56,57.
I think about the virtue of persistence – of dreaming the dream, setting goals and working hard to achieve them. I wonder if anyone else in the terminal has such thoughts or if I am just plain weird. And am I the only one counting its flights? Am I the only one who sees the dramatic irony of this situation?
65,66,67,68
The fate of this bird is sealed. It will certainly die trying to fly out of a place where I sit and wait for a flight. Out of the corner of my eye I see a flicker of hope. Another bird! Companionship! He joins in on the flight to nowhere. It adopts a parallel flight plan. But then the two birds start to improvise. They dive and flutter and change their flight to one of endless variation. The birds chirp madly to each other, discover the air duct and disappear.
I am stunned at their escape, but I arrive at the final metaphor. We can all sit here and do nothing, thinking about how we would solve problems. Or we can get up, find a friend and fly. The wait at the terminal doesn’t have to be futile, even if it seems like a long, long time before anything changes. The flight can be experimental, surprising and even exhilarating. I board my plane confident that I have discovered one of the deeper meanings of life in a building called terminal from a pair of birds who found a way out together.

Copyright Oct. 2008
Maureen Brady Johnson