I like birds and birding. My wife and I maintain a lot of feeders in the back yard which allows us to observe each species’ different ways. We are also able to develop relationships with family units that make our yard their home. This is important to me. I have always felt a deep but respectful connection with creatures in the wild. In this short story/memoir, I experiment with magical realism via a small gray bird.

The photograph is of a Brown Shrike. It was taken by Dr. Callyn Yorke at the Son Tran Mountain wildlife preserve on a rainy day in Da Nang, 2017. (http://avconline.avc.edu/cyorke/Vietnam2017.html)

There is a familiar odor in the air this morning. I take note but do nothing more than the usual weekend routine. Make coffee. Feed cats and dogs.

My night-owl wife gets her best sleep from two until ten, so I leave her a quiet house by taking my cup and our pets out onto the deck. Outside, the air is humid and still. But there’s something else. Mixed in with a Texas spring’s earthy, floral aroma, I smell something faintly salty and petrochemical.

Taking a sip of coffee, my gaze lands on a bird feeder hanging in the shadows of an Ashe juniper. A chickadee swoops in, grabs a sunflower seed, and hustles back into the foliage. There’s no telling how often I have seen that little ritual, but this time it brings a blurry, long-ago memory into focus.

I recall a Cobra gunship flying so low I can see the face of the pilot. It’s tracing the gentle curve of China Beach, a well-guarded rest and recreation area for American servicemen in Vietnam during the war. Below it, some of my squadron mates are playing shirts and skins football. The rest of us are lounging on the sand digesting a Fourth of July picnic of grilled steaks, baked beans, and coleslaw.

Weather-wise, it’s a typical tropical day for this time of year. Sunny, few clouds, and a reliable breeze from offshore. At our hangar just a couple of miles inland, the atmosphere would be stifling hot and windless.

All of sudden, the ocean breeze fades to nothing as humidity wraps around us like a steaming hot tortilla. This gets everyone’s attention. A tropical thunderstorm would soon blow in.

We pack up and slog across the toasty, coral sand towards the road just beyond a scant tree line. Once there, we watch the senior officers pile into the squadron’s lone pickup truck and take off. The rest of us will have to wait for the arranged arrival of an olive drab school bus, not due for another hour.

The pickup had been gone for barely more than a minute when gale force winds hit hard, toppling a palm tree a little way down the beach.

There are more airmen than can fit under the nearby cabana, so a few of us run to the single remaining wall of a cinderblock structure that’s not far away. We make the shelter just as rain explodes from the sky. The wind is blowing so strong that even with no roof over our heads, we’re somewhat protected in the leeward bubble.

Hunkering down after our mad dash for cover, we notice a little gray bird fluttering vainly against the wind and rain. It looks tired and in physical danger from being repeatedly thrown to the ground by the tempest.

As one, we wordlessly edge along the wall away from the distressed creature in hopes it will seek refuge in our sanctuary. Suspiciously, but not too slowly, the bird eases into the pocket of calm.

We settle in, and I assess our little gathering. Absent the scrim of human hubris, I see that we’re all equals now, quietly watching a furious storm with ancient animal eyes.  

After fifteen or twenty minutes, the squall passes. We damp, chilled airmen stir as our shelter mate hops out into the gentle rain. It swivels its tiny head, carefully looking us over.

The bird’s black eyes sparkle. For a second, I feel one with it, connected in a way that neither feathers, nor brain size, nor any idea about humanity’s special place in the world can deny.

“Goodbye, my friends,” says an odd voice somewhere inside, “May good weather be yours forever.”

I take a startled breath. The young men around me gasp, too.

Deftly shaking off the rain, the gray bird launches itself up into the air. In a couple of seconds, it disappears into a sky quickly turning bright and silvery.

My mates and I look at each other. One says, “Did you?” but lets it drop. We tacitly agree that confirming telepathic communication with a bird is a one-way trip to the loony bin.

Yet perversely, we betray not only our own senses but our presumed sanity. When the bus arrives, we climb aboard. We let it take us back into war.