I was walking down Prince street when I saw a dead bird, the second one I'd noticed in two days that had plummeted to the sidewalk like a ripe fruit. He still looked clean and unruffled, considering, so I stopped to looked up to find how far he had fallen. Above him was a street where there was perched an identical baby bird, only still alive, watching me discover the difference between him and his brother. I never much went in for the cheesiness of old movies, but the sudden sadness I felt as I watched the little guy chirp pulled my hand to my mouth like a 1940's ingenue.
A shiny man in a suit whipped onto my sidewalk. As he hurried by, he assessed the dead bird situation with a glance, and then pushed past me with disgust.
So I started watching him instead, because now he was the most awful thing on the street.
