A confession

Have you ever done something so bad that its bothered you for years? Something that, when it's dark and cold at night climbs into your memory from down deep and kicks you in the conscious? One of those things that you secretly wish you could go back and undo? I did. Many many years ago.

I think I was maybe 10. I was a very angry kid. I thrived on violence. I did things like stabbing fellow students in the top of the head with a pencil because they pissed me off. Putting jars of gas in a fire just to see what happens (knocked me on my ass when it exploded). Needles to say, I had issues. I'm not looking for excuses. Or maybe I am. Perhaps I'm looking for reasons.

We lived in a house between Seaside and Astoria. An odd little house on a strip of land. The house sits perhaps 30 feet from highway 101. Nothing terribly special about the house. The bedrooms are upstairs. And, if I remember correctly, a bathroom.

Two of the bedrooms, mine and my parents, had balconies out sliding doors. My parents room was in the back of the house and the balcony hung over the back shed where we kept our firewood. One day a bird of some kind, I don't remember other than it was a small bird, took up residence under my parents balcony.

This bird spent some time building the perfect nest. Much to the delight of my parents, who watched her fly in and out, time and again, building her little house. She would sit under the porch and sing. A lovely sound. And then one day there was a chirping heard from this nest.

She had baby birds. 6 of them. Tiny, helpless, unable to do much more than sleep and chirp. And chirp they did. They chirped in the day and they chirped at night. My parents loved the sound of the baby birds chirping. I did not. I don't remember why I didn't, only the feeling.

Of most of my younger life I very spotty memories. A little here, a little there. Some vague, ghost like memories of various events. I very few crystal clear memories. This is one of those that is like hitting the rewind button on a high definition blue ray on a 1080p 3D flat screen in my mind. This is a memory that doesn't fade, doesn't go away and some times doesn't let me sleep.

What is the confession? Why am I writing this, after so many years? Because I killed those baby birds. I took them out of the nest, one by one and flung them as far as I could. I willfully and intentionally took the life of 6 completely helpless and innocent creatures.

I don't remember why I did it. I do remember doing. I remember my parents asking what happened to the birds. I remember telling them I had no idea. I remember feeling like they knew exactly what I had done. But nothing was ever said. And I remember feeling sad. I remember feeling remorse. Feeling disgust at my self for what I had done and wishing I could undo it. I remember how it change me.

I had a very strange childhood. I had few if any friends. I always felt the outcast, the odd man out, the one no one wanted to be around. I was violent, quiet, the strange one. I'm finally starting to understand why. But it's taken a lifetime. That's for another time though. For now, my confession.

This horrific murder of future flight has plagued me my entire life. No matter how I've tried to block it away, it's always been there. When I sit quietly, it is the memory that comes up. When I hear the chirp of a baby bird, I remember how I felt after ending the lives of those 6. I don't remember the feeling during or before, but I will never forget the feeling after.

I've sometimes wondered. When they talk about the evil in people being discovered when they start to kill animals. I wonder if the opposite is possible. I wonder if earlier or later in my life, had I done the same thing, if my feelings after would have been of pleasure and not disgust in my self. Not sadness at what I had done, guilt at the taking of such innocent life.

It's somewhat strange to me. Of all the secrets I've told people over the years, all the stories of my life, all the memories I have, I have never told this to a single person. Not a lover, a friend or a family member. No a single person.

And its eaten at me. Like a worm in an apple, a maggot in rotting flesh. Consuming me from the inside out. Gnawing at me. Of all the bad things I've done in my life, and that is a long list, this is the only one that still, almost 30 years  later, bothers me. Every day it bothers me. Some days I feel an urge to weep. I don't know why. Sometimes I try and tell myself they where just birds. Simply animals, of no consequence to the grand scheme of things. Birds die every day for all kinds of reasons. But I know it's not true.

Maybe it's what these poor, helpless birds represent to me. For all the years of self loathing and guilt I've never paused to think about why. Why did I do it. Why, all these later does it still eat at me. If I close my eyes I can see those baby birds, feel them in my hand and I took them from their home, one after another. I wonder if the knew the fate in store for them after I let fly with the first of their siblings. I wonder. I will never know.

I wonder what my life would be like had I not murdered those birds and felt the guilt. If I had felt something else, or, worse, if I had felt nothing. I wonder if I would be alive today. As horrible as it is to me, through the shame and the guilt, I know one thing is true. My actions that day changed me. The person I was and the person I was becoming, forever altered through the tragic and pointless death of six innocent baby birds.

I remember the hate, the anger, the bitterness that had been building in me for most of my young life at that point. I remember the urge to destroy things, to hurt things, to hurt people. I remember now the feeling of self loathing that I had developed by that point in my existence.


As I sit writing this I've suddenly been hit with an almost crushing wall of emotion. Childhood memories are coming back like a beach crushing tsunami. I have to pause with my writing to deal with these feelings. And I thank something that I am at a point in my life I can accept them, I can acknowledge them for what they are and I can let them flow over, through and around me instead of crushing me. 

But with the memory of all that, I still do not remember why I made the choice to harm those birds. I know that it never came into my young confused mind that it would haunt me for 3 decades.

So, without getting into the whys of things, for that would take much much time and many pages, this is my confession. I am a murderer of the innocent. I have taken life 6 times of beings unable to protect themselves and certainly undeserving of death. I took something beautiful out of this world that does not have enough to begin with. I did it without thought. I did it without meaning. And for 30 years I told no one.