Three Little Birds

One Ramadhan morning I was walking home from the market with my mom, bags full of fresh vegetables and raw ingredients in hands, when she pointed at something. It was a bird's nest on the asphalt. It fell from a tree. One of them thrown out of the nest, clearly dead. My mom asked me to remove them to the side to they won't be harm by vehicles or other human that pass the street. I never hold a little bird, let alone a dead one, in my hand before. But I had to because my mom definitely won't do it. I checked the nest and there were three other birds inside. I wasn't sure about one of them. It looks pretty dead, but the other two was alive. And somehow I came up with this crazy idea that we should bring this nest with birds inside it home and take care of them until they can fly. Mom agreed.

Soon the birds were my responsibility. At mom's suggestion, I gave them papaya which they refused. I don't know what else we should give them. But then I was sure that one of them is dead. I left for awhile and when I came back, two of them changed position and not long after that, I found those two not moving. Dead. So it was just this one that made it, then. I used a toothpick to give it water and it pecked angrily but sips the water anyway. We have a bird cage because we used to have birds as pets. But we haven't used it for years and it's just hanging there. I'm afraid of what I might find at the bottom of it if I decided to take it down. So I intended to momentarily put the bird and its nest inside this pot. The plant in that pot have died, it was half empty with soil, I'm just sure it was a safe place for it.

I left it there. Maybe for an hour. When I checked back, I found an empty nest. The bird was gone. It's funny how I feel horrified. It was not mine and I only have it for far less than a day. I checked all around in case it fell, but I didn't find a dead body. The pot was high on the wall so I would have known if a cat ambush the nest, but I'm sure no cat was approaching. So I tried to make myself sure that the bird somehow has flee to its freedom, back into the wild. Alive, unlike its three dead siblings.
I didn't see it taking off... but that's okay.
In my head it is alive and well.