Today I walked home from a diner, stoned. I had pancakes and eggs for dinner, with a brownie for dessert. The world was a place of indulgence on a summer break, especially when you are 31 and did not expect to have anymore summer breaks. Then I saw something fluttering on the ground. A sparrow was on its back, twisted and gnarled. It could flap neither wing and only kick one talon. When it would move, it would spin in weird spirals on the ground, unable to control its body.

I tried to carry him home, but he shook out of my hand. My friends went home for a shoebox while I sat with him. His beak opened and shut rapidly, but he had nothing to eat, nothing to say. I think he had got to the stage where any movement he could make, he did.

We took him home in a shoebox lined with papertowels. I could not get food or water into his beak for fear of injuring him and his inability to control his movements. He shat in the box, and I was grateful he was functioning in any way. By the end of the night, he was staying still in his corner, breathing a little less each time I checked on him.

One of the friends volunteered to take him home, her being friends with a bird lady. If nothing can be done, she will bury him in the backyard. As she leaves, I say to her, "Listen, please do this the Klingon way. He may entirely seem dead to you while still alive. Then you would bury him alive. Please cover him and take a huge stone and just drop it once to be sure he doesn't suffer." She nodded. This wasn't about us or what was socially expected in our banal little world. This was about this creature's suffering.