Simplicity Aleyda Daivi Canez

have it now. She flicked her fingers at the female. “Shoo! Scoot! Get out of here!” The blackbirds retreated a little and the dove sank down onto the warm concrete. It looked relieved. Kate thought one more time about taking the bird with her to class, and realized that her presence was only prolonging its suffering. If she couldn’t actually help, she should leave. “I’m sorry, bird,” she whispered as she stood up. “I wish there was something I could do.” But she couldn’t force herself to go. At her feet, the dove picked itself up and tottered toward the man with the newspaper, who had stopped snickering and was staring at the hapless bird. The watchful blackbirds seemed to understand that he wasn’t going to do anything either and bounded onto the sidewalk. The dove’s terror reminded Kate of the murder of Kitty Genovese, the woman who had been stabbed to death in New York City while over thirty people watched and nobody called the police. That had happened thirty or forty years ago, but nothing had changed. Last semester, a woman was assaulted in a university parking lot while other students watched. Fortunately, the woman fought back and freed herself, but nobody tried to help until after the attacker ran away. News reports castigated the onlookers for their cowardice. Kate imagined history recording her own exploits—a woman too indecisive to rescue an injured bird. The thought stung her into another round of stamping and shooing, and this time when she knelt down, she resolved to pick up the bird. But as she reached out, a hand scooped up the dove. Kate looked up into the face of an elderly groundskeeper. “Thank you,” she said. “I’m glad you’re doing this.” The groundskeeper straightened and walked away without answering. He held the dove in one hand as if it were a broken branch or a discarded soda bottle. He didn’t cradle the bird to his chest the way Kate would have. He put the dove on the floor of his golf cart and drove away. Kate looked over at the man sitting on the bench. “What do you think he’ll do with the dove?” “He’ll probably just throw it away,” the man said, opening his paper again. “It’s not like the university has a budget for bird rescue.” “At least he didn’t throw it into the garbage while I was watching.” The man murmured something and continued reading, but Kate felt like she had to explain herself to someone. “I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t walk away, but I couldn’t pick it up.” The man turned the page. “I know what you mean,” he said, immersing himself in the sports section. “I couldn’t just let those birds kill it.” “I know. I would have done the same thing,” the man said, but the whole time he hadn’t moved. If Kate hadn’t stomped and yelled, he wouldn’t even have noticed the birds. Kate shifted her messenger bag to her other shoulder and checked her watch. She could still make it to her economics class but instead of racing to the lecture hall, she turned back toward her car. The pink snapdragons seemed lurid now, and the orange blossoms had given her a headache. Near the stadium, under another orange tree, she saw another pair of blackbirds. She looked away and walked a little faster. If she could forget the dove, everything would be okay. The incident would be over. But the image of the dove stayed with her, like Kitty Genovese dying in front of her own apartment or the photo of a homeless man frozen under a blanket of newsprint. The dove’s dark eyes reminded her of the orphans in Somalia and Uganda whose somber faces stared at her from the pages of magazines. It was easy to focus on redecorating a bedroom or baking strawberry cupcakes, comforting to think that someone else would see the ad and sponsor a malnourished child.