Mimi is dead. Max’s Mimi. The one who the pet shop sales guy (and The Trolls!) wringed my arm to get with all that ‘they are soul mates, love birds belong together’ schmooze. Mimi, the one with the bright green feathers and the terrifying temperament. Mimi, baby blue feathered, gentle-natured Max’s cagemate and bird spouse… is dead.
Ever seen a dead bird? I have.
It was a Friday afternoon like so many Friday afternoons before it. I walked into the house with a swing in my step, grocery bags in hand and a smile on my face. I love Friday afternoons. Especially when it’s an off-weekend. Which it was. There was sleep to be had. There was a weekend braai to start preparing. There was my favourite woolly pajama pants to get into. There was fun to be had.
“Maaaaxxx! Max and Miiiimi!” I yell merrily as I walk through the front door, casually throwing my handbag on the couch as I walked past, sauntering to their cage, where I was sure they would be. As they always are. Sitting side-by-side on their little white plastic ledge. Chirping excitedly, because they know that when ‘Mama’ gets home, the first thing she does, is give them a feather rub and bird seed treat. But there was none of that. There was no chirping. There was no cuddling side by side on their ledge. There was no joy.
What I did find though, in those last fatal seconds before I reached the newest members of our little single mom tripod family… was silence. Eerie silence. The type you get when you know something is wrong. Terribly, terribly wrong.
And it was.
Mimi was dead. She was lying on the floor of their bird cage home, flat on her back, cold as an ice cube and stiff as a stick. And Max? Max was standing on top of her. Yes, you read right. Her (easy-going, good-natured, loving) husband of the last couple of months… was standing on top of her, balancing on her bloated stomach, staring back at me in complete and utter silence.
It was gory. It was gruesome. It was single-handedly the scariest thing I have ever seen in my house.
I swear, if it wasn’t for the fact that I am a grown woman of above average weight and sensibility, I would have fainted right there, on the spot. “Oh my God… Max,” I whispered, shivering from head to toe. “What… how… what… oh my God, Max… what happened?!”
He didn’t answer me, though.
Not when I asked him. Not when I spun around to grab my cellphone for emergency backup (I can do a lot, but touching and actually picking up a dead bird I’ve grown to love, is not one of those things).
Not when the children came home and I tearily informed them of Mimi’s passing. In fact, it took two whole days and two whole nights before I would hear Max chirp again.
It’s been a week since Mimi left us, and a week since I found him standing on her dead body. My sister has offered that we find him a ‘new wife’ but I remain skeptical. I don’t think he’s ready. And even if he is, I certainly am not.
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