The Great Hummingbird Massacre of 1927

             I smelled the brick. It was hot enough to smell brick; the vapors from the clay and rock they were made from drifted up to my nose on a breeze not quite strong enough to cool anything off. It was a practical joke of a breeze. It merely moved the hot smells and sounds around my head, providing no relief. What was I doing there? I couldn’t think of a reason good enough to trick me into staying, so I proceeded to pry the bottoms of my thighs from the hot metal chair. A few steps into my journey to somewhere else, my stride was halted. My foot hovered over the hummingbird, seemingly mocking its signature flying style.

              I waited for it to move in a way hummingbirds move, or maybe wake up from its hummingbird nap, or raise its small hummingbird chest the way hummingbird chests move when hummingbirds take hummingbird-sized breaths. But it remained committed to its death. I crouched over the bird and pinched the thinnest and longest of its tail feathers between my thumb and forefinger. I gradually began to lift the only victim of the Great Hummingbird Massacre of 1927. The tip of its beak stuck to the brick. I now smelled the hummingbird beak along with the brick; I tugged again. Still, the beak resisted. I grew frantic, another yank, no release, the brick clinging to its prize, the only victim of the Great Hummingbird Massacre of 1927. I pried and tore and wrenched the beak free. A dainty pluck accompanied its release. The weight of the bird was so minimal my hand didn’t register its existence.

              I ran with my small catch, still poised between my two fingers, through the halls. I passed by eight and seven-fifths people down one hallway and then another three and a quarter persons in the next. None of them noticed the only victim of the Great Hummingbird Massacre of 1927 in my hand. Their eyes did not record its being, as numb to its presence as my hand. They were completely oblivious to the disaster.
                Maybe later that night they would be at home, eating a casserole made from a previous dinner not wholly consumed, and their father, after he had finished the last bite of casserole, would remark that he saw on the news that a great hummingbird massacre had occurred today. Or perhaps they would learn the next day in school. The headmaster would call everyone together and very solemnly say there had been a great hummingbird massacre yesterday on campus and that today would be a half day so that everyone could collect themselves and properly grieve. But I had no time to wonder about their apathy.
               

               I entered the biology lab instead. Maybe my teacher knew what to do in case of a hummingbird massacre. Perhaps he would reach underneath his desk and pull out the world’s smallest defibrillator, complete with the world’s smallest defibrillator paddles, and administer the world’s smallest shock to the world’s smallest heart. Instead he retrieved a plastic Ziploc bag, dropped the only victim of the Great Hummingbird Massacre of 1927 in, and deposited it into the trash-can.