The first one died in my hands an hour after coming home. I mishandled it. I cupped the blond orb of fuzz in my hands and stroked its feathers, entranced by the way those innocent spikes jumped back on end. The snap of bone was like the click of a light switch, in both sound and ease, and it took me several seconds to realize what I had done. I carried the bird to Baba, my head hung low.
Together, we buried it in the backyard of the duplex we shared with a local family. After we finished patting the dirt flat, I watched Baba interlock his fingers, place his hands at his midriff, and close his eyes. He recited a prayer from the Qur’an. I stood next to him, my hands on my belly just like his. A sharp autumn wind whipped the thinning black hair on top of Baba’s head. I shivered. It had only been two months since we moved from Texas back to the Atlas mountains of Morocco. The air was thin – I chased after every breath.
Two days earlier, I had held four chicks in their cardboard box, stunned that Baba let me accept them from the grinning farmer.
“You’re sure you’ll take care of them?” Baba dropped to one knee to meet me at eye level. I wrapped my fingers around the bottom of the box for a firmer grip. I nodded. “Alright, then,” Baba said. The farmer laughed, pleased to make use of the leftover runts.
The second chick fell down the stairs. A flap of their box had cracked off, and this eager one managed to push its way over the torn lip. It didn’t go far before tumbling off the edge of the hardwood floor, careening step by step into a spattering of feather and flesh. To bury it, I had to scoop it into a dustpan. Then winter came and the third died of exposure. I didn’t know what that meant at the time. That morning I found it curled in a corner, its eyes were the color of skim milk. I thought it had died to spite me.
The fourth I named Pikachu. I never held him. I used flattened cereal boxes to reinforce the walls of his enclosure. I kept him next to me in bed so my warmth could protect him. But after a week, I carried him out of my room. I clutched the box with stiff arms, careful not to jostle him awake as we made our way to Baba’s study. Baba pushed his glasses down the bridge of his nose and raised his eyebrows.
“Pika should live somewhere else now,” I said, looking at my feet, my toes gripping the shag rug like talons burrowing into sand. “I can’t do it.” By then my final bird had stirred, circling his pen. Half of Pika’s feathers were missing, replaced by jaundiced patches of coarse skin, and one eye wouldn’t open. My dad pursed his lips and pulled the box toward him. I walked out of the room without looking back.
That night, I awoke hours before sunrise. The sound of metal and dirt drew me to the window, where I watched Baba dig a new grave in the backyard. He placed a tissue box in the soil and covered it. When he closed his eyes, I closed mine. We prayed, but I didn’t know any surahs to recite. Instead, I found myself mouthing curses – first at Baba for letting me take Pika home, then at God for everything else. Twenty-five years later, Baba is all smiles, elbowing me in the ribs as he wonders if grandchildren could be on the way. He doesn’t know that cribs are made of cardboard, and a child’s grasping fingers are hooked claws, scratching sorrow into a father’s heart.
Youssef Biaz is a Moroccan-Alabaman writer. He once performed poetry for President Obama and has since been wrestling with the fallout of having peaked in high school. His work has been featured in The Hotazel Review. This is his first nonfiction publication.
Image Credit: Flickr Creative Commons/jev55
