Thursday 21 June 2012

A story

A story happened on Monday, right in front of me.

I'd been into town and got on the bus to go home.  The bus was a bit early, so the driver was waiting at the stop until his time to go when suddenly there was a great squawking of birds that made everyone, on the bus and in the street, turn to look.  Flying low, screeching and circling by the park railings were a lot of furious birds, while on the edge of the pavement crouched a small and rather pretty cat.  She sprang up uselessly at them, made a couple of darts forward, then chose her moment and ran out into the traffic.

If it had been the main road she wouldn't had a chance, but this was in a thirty zone close to a traffic light, and the driver managed to stop with two inches to spare.  Fortunately the drivers behind him were all paying attention, so nobody bumped and puss cat ran across the road and into a garden pretending it was nothing to do with her.  But the traffic still didn't move.  Something else was happening.

On the pavement, near where the cat and the bird had been, was a tall young man with a skateboard under his arm and a bag on his back.  He put them both down, ran over to the still unmoving car, and lay on the ground to look underneath it. (By this time, there was quite an audience). I thought he might be looking for the cat, and wondered if anybody else had seen her sprint into the garden, because if not, I'd better tell him.  But he was already lying down looking under the next car in the queue, and this time he found what he was looking for.

It was a small bird.  I couldn't see what kind it was, but it may have been a young one.  Holding it gently, he took a good look at it to see if it was injured.  It wasn't harmed, just terrified, so cradling it in his hands he carried it back to the park, and, as the traffic began to moved again and the bus rolled away, he was finding some safe cover for it in the bushes.

If that had been a fairy story, the bird would have given him three wishes. As it was a real life Yorkshire town story, what happened was

the bird was safe
the man was happy because the bird was safe
people on the bus and in the street, and driving their cars felt uplifted and happy because they'd seen a kind action

It was the most life-giving part of my day.

And we hadn't even wished.

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