SMALL WONDER

To some people, house birds that nested around their houses are pests. They bring dry grass, straw and other junks into the crevices of your house and leave bird poop in at your front door. In my grandma's house, they poop all over her bathroom in the guest room. She complains to me all the time about the smell and the back breaking chore of cleaning up.

But she never once told us to try get rid of them.  She told them to let them be, as the birds are signs of 'rahmat Allah' or prosperity. It's believed that all Allah's creations extoll His greatness in zikr and extend their prayers to those who have done good deeds to them, such as providing them shelter.

Even when three of these little fellas dropped from their nests located at my front door, she scooped two of them who survived into a plastic container and placed them somewhere safe.

I feel a little bad for letting her do worry so much and didn't act much when the chicks fell except snapping up some close-ups (psycho kapa). I thought she wouldn't care coz she hates the birds so much when they mess up her house. But she did care.

The next day, I transferred the chicks into a shoe box and placed them on a high beam behind my kitchen wall, hoping that the other birds would find them and feed them.

The face of survival.

I wonder what happened to the sole survivor. One of the two died in the shoe box and the last fella was still alive on the second day. On the third day, it was gone. If it was eaten by a cat or a fox (they can easily climb up that high beam where I hid the container), I'm sure the box will be knocked over, but it wasn't. The chick was beguilingly... gone.