last week, a bird flew into jochen’s room. (jochen is my roommate.) i found it more annoying than anything else, as i generally don’t hold birds in particularly high esteem and have grown to detest the domineering sparrows who consistently scrounge for crumbs off my plate at schleusenkrug. but this was an entirely different kind of bird. a parrot. complete with human-like squawks and technicolor dreamcoat.

his arrival was puzzling. though i haven’t lived in berlin very long, i’m fairly certain that parrots are not native to northern germany. with that in mind, we surmised that it must be someone’s fugitive housepet, perhaps a neighbor’s. our initial plan was to hold on to it while attempting to contact it’s owner. surely canvassing the block with parrot flyers would help locate the bird’s keeper. but this presented the issue of capturing the bird and detaining it, pursuits of which i was wholly uninterested. next, we figured we should just let it fly away and hopefully return home. but after opening the window and coaxing him to the balcony, he decided to stay, opting to fly laps from one side of the room to the other, letting out piercing squeals that helped wear its welcome. we named our new flatmate mr. p. (i don’t know how to ascertain the sex of a bird, but something about his cocksure mannerisms and fatally voracious appetite pointed to male.) later, jochen tried to feed him some muesli and water, but to his chagrin, mr. p instead chose to munch on some chemical fertilizer from an overgrown houseplant.

the next morning, i awoke to sad sight of mr. p’s writhing death throes on jochen’s floor. within minutes he was dead, the victim of an adventurous spirit and unwise food choices. it was disheartening to see the colorfull ball laying supine on the hardwood floor, and i carried a little extra psychological weight with me throughout the day. when i returned from work, i learned that a ceremony had been planned for mr. p. a viking’s funeral. jochen, denise, katherine and myself, changed into our finest clothes, mine being a tie and borrowed jacket worn by jochen’s father on his wedding day. we took our fallen friend with some supplies and proceeded around the block to the bank of the spree. there, we toasted with red wine and said kind words about our late visitor.

then, we proceeded to douse mr. p’s makeshift coffin/raft with every flammable solvent we could find in our flat. i set the box on fire and jochen dropped it safely onto the water as it burst into a considerable blaze. a combination of friendly currents and divine intervention carried the flaming raft out towards the oberbaumbrücke. it burned for longer than any of us expected, continually pausing and then flaring up again as it crept further away.

as the bundle of fire languidly approached towards the bridge, i couldn’t help feeling some sort of catharsis. was i really emotionally invested over the inconsequential passing of a bird i didn’t much care for in the first place? maybe i was a little stressed or overly tired. or maybe it was just a combination of an early autumn chill while the glittering flame danced across the water. the macabre nature of the event notwithstanding, sometimes a pretty thing can just be a pretty thing.