two little birds

towards the end of the crossing the boat had very unexpected and unconventional visitors, they were a couple of land birds, a female and a male who were migrating probably from africa towards america. they must have been very tired when they decided to make a stop over for almost two days on board, specially as they had just passed two full days of squall after squall. through the time that they were on the boat they were very friendly and allowed peter and esteban to touch them, play with them and even feed them dead aunts and water.

it was easy to tell which was the male and which was the female. the female was poking the male on his head and feet trying to get the male ready to go flying again. she was the most energetic of the two, telling him, “come on, time to move again…” and giving him encouragement. the male was tired and was probably old and sick, his attitude was more, “…leave me alone, let me rest… i am tired and cant go on….” they communicated with each other, touched, played and flew around each other. they even showed affection. it was wonderful to see the couple interact.

sadly, after over 24 hours of watching this love affair, the male died at dawn. it was devastating. the crew had the moral at its lowest. it was really heartbreaking, and unfortunately the worst was yet to come. in a effort to protect the widow female, esteban threw the male overboard so she did not have to see her dead partner’s corpse. this did not help much as she immediately noticed he was gone, and right away her attitude changed. she stopped being the vibrant bird with the “let’s go flying again” attitude. instead she grew sadder by the minute; and after mourning him for 8 hours straight, she gave up and also died. this was tragic, probably the lowest point of the crossing. peter thought it was a love story, exactly as i am writing it here. husband died and then wife could not take the grief and went to a better place to join him. esteban on the other hand had a more hypochondriac version of the accounts. he though to himself how unlucky they must be to get, in the middle of the atlantic ocean, two animals infected with the bird flu who came to die on board and spread the disease. he was then looking for symptoms of the flu, which of course none of them had. but i tend to agree with peter. i think it was a love story; a very beautiful, romantic and sad story.