Bakersfield.com

     It was a hot and grumpy day. I was at the gas station filling up my SUV with overpriced gas. As I saw the price meter roar past forty dollars, knowing it had another forty to go, I was distracted by a pecking noise. I looked to my left and saw a large beverage truck parked at the side of the station; presumably delivering drinks to the convenience store located on premises. On the passenger’s side mirror (it was a long rectangular truck mirror, with a small circle magnifying mirror directly underneath it) sat a small bird. 

     The bird was sitting on the smaller, circular, mirror and cocking its head back and forth while looking at itself in the longer, rectangular, mirror. Cute, I thought. But, then it thrust itself roughly into the rectangular mirror. It bounced back, threw itself at the mirror in a five-time succession before landing back on the lower mirror. It cocked its head back and forth a few more times, and the procession began again. Splat! Splat! Splat! Splat! Splat! I had to laugh. 

     And while I normally do not get my kicks off of bird self-abuse, I continued to find this quite amusing. I mean, if a human was doing this, I would have surmised that he or she had had a prolonged engagement with some hallucinogen and I would feel sorry for the individual. But, alas, it was only a bird. So, I continued to chuckle. Splat! Splat! Splat! Yup, that darn bird was still trying to get at the other bird in the mirror. 

     I was reminded how birds in cages often have little mirrors in their metal wired abodes to fight off loneliness; inasmuch as, I have heard that birds don’t know the difference between another bird and their own reflection. Surely, however, this bird was going to learn that lesson sooner or later with its bruised feathered breast smashing up against the truck’s side mirror. 

     I heard a loud click and saw that my car had finally been filled with its limit of gasoline. I looked around and saw that there were no other cars in sight wanting to fill up behind me, so, I continued to observe the bird. It attempted to get the reflection’s attention a few more times before it flew to the nearest telephone pole line. I followed it and saw it perch itself next to another bird. “Oh good!” I thought. Now the bird is investing itself in a real friend, not just a silly reflection. The two birds sat side by side for a matter of seconds and then they both flew back down to the side mirror. Chirps were exchanged and the original bird began pecking at the mirror. Then, it flung itself back into the mirror with a thud and landed back on the circular mirror where its friend had sat their motionless, observing. The friend turned its head quickly towards the reflection obsessed bird and then quickly flew away. At this point, the original bird began flinging itself back at the mirror.

     “Stupid bird.” I had mumbled as I got back into my car, ceasing to find any more amusement from this silly bird. But at this point, I wasn’t thinking that the bird was stupid because it was near killing itself by smashing into the mirror, it was stupid because it seemed as if it needed a friend, had had a friend all along, and still preferred chasing after a mere image. And in flash, I had a revelation. “Stupid me.” I whispered under my breath as I saw the reflection of my own eyes staring back at me in my rear view mirror. 

     In each of our lives, there is something or someone sitting on that telephone line waiting for us like the little bird friend. And often, that little bird friend will even come with us to witness our self-destruction in hopes that we realize what we actually have in front of us. But what do we do? We keep pecking in that mirror. It’s nothing more than good old self-absorption. And while only the naïve, or the birdbrains amongst us, don’t know that self-absorption is self-destructive, I think we are all guilty of pecking in mirrors rather than getting our bird’s eye view of our lives from those telephone lines. 

     I hadn’t really expected to learn so much from a bird, but I suppose it was easier to see the sheer stupidity behind this characteristic in a bird than fluff it up with the emotional problems clogging up the root of blame in us humans. So, yeah, it was a hot and grumpy day, but it was still a day for inflection. Lesson learned. We all, winged or walking, look pretty ridiculous chasing after our own image.