Why Birds Crash Into Windows

natalie hampton

Some see reflections of open sky and vegetation and think they are flying free. Others see their reflection and try to attack their perceived enemy. They aren’t preparing to become a corpse beneath the sill and bushes. But other crashing birds know it is glass. They see the smudges and cracks of the window and interior of the home. Yet they continue to fly anyway. Why?

–Piers Lawland, Why Birds Crash into Windows (2021)

***

NOVEMBER 2006

At my brother’s funeral, my parents left me alone in the living room, the backup ceremony location when they couldn’t agree on a funeral home and budget. The closest thing to flowers were the shriveled herbs in the fridge drawer, and only one picture of Amis hung on the wall, an unsmiling junior year headshot from the yearbook. Only Mom, Dad, and I sat around his urn. Mom invited Amis’s dad, but they hadn’t seen each other since senior year of high school, and he didn’t answer any of her texts. It was for the best. Dad got weird whenever Amis’s dad was mentioned. Really, whenever anything about Amis was mentioned. 

Our house wasn’t meant for gatherings. The couch fit two comfortably, three if you didn’t mind sitting on the loose nail in the center. I minded. The coffee table was stained with watermarks and had a wobbly leg that spilled any drinks placed on it, and wide windows beckoned blinding light. Just past noon, the sun streamed directly into the room. It was bright, and I felt like it would burn me until my funeral was next. 

My eulogy was after Mom and before Dad. Halfway through Mom’s speech, Dad got up and went to the kitchen, and Mom stopped mid-sentence and followed him. I was glad for the space; I hadn’t prepared my speech yet. 

Instead of writing it, I stared out the window. Most of the windows’ glass was smudged—my parents didn’t see the value in paying for cleaners when it would dirty again soon—and small, surface level cracks ran like veins in patterns across the surface. But the rightmost pane was clear. That was where the birds crashed. 

I kept tallies of how many birds hit our windows in my head throughout the day and recorded them in a journal at night. I tried to calculate how many I missed in the hours I wasn’t at home. Once, I went outside and almost went behind the bushes to count how many bodies lay there, but I chickened out last minute and haven’t regained the nerve since. 

In the kitchen, Mom and Dad’s voices echoed off the walls. I thought the fighting would be better with Amis gone—Dad hated the reminder that Mom had been with someone before him—but instead, they spent more time burning their relationship and antagonizing the other. Best not to pay attention to them. I thought of the birds.

Why did they choose the same flight into the window as their ancestors? Did they not know where they were going, did they realize a second before impact, or were they blissfully ignorant the entire time until their heartbeat was pulled out from under them? Perhaps it was a hereditary curse. Or rite of passage. Maybe they crashed because they loved the thrill. 

Like Amis. One day, he was planning to go cliff diving to feel his heartbeat thud out of his chest and his lungs freeze. The day he died, was it an intentional calculation of dosage? Did he know how much medication he couldn’t recover from? Or was he like those birds, enjoying the freedom of flight, the freedom of feeling, until they all came crashing back down?  

***

JANUARY 2014

The realtor walked Mom and I through the apartment, her thin heels click clicking on the hardwood and her long acrylic nails tapping on the plastic clipboard with brochures. Mom looked around like she was the one buying. I knew a part of her wished to leave Dad and find a new place, though since Amis’s death, she couldn’t stand to be alone. But I liked my privacy, and I needed to move out. 

The realtor showed us the living room. It was small, but a semester in a college dorm had taught me how to live without space. And there were windows running from the floor to the ceiling with a glass so clear I could stick my hand through it. A perfect space for writing and research, a perfect vantage point. 

“The windows are made of low iron glass,” she said as she presented the room. “So clear you won’t even notice they’re here. And—oh!” She cut herself off as a bird careened into the window. Mom jumped, and I resisted the urge to press my fingers against the condensation of the imprint of contact on the window. 

A red tint buoyed her freckles. “My, I’ve been told that happens a lot. My first time seeing it.” She recomposed herself—straightening out her pencil skirt and wristwatch—and took a step towards the adjacent kitchen—but I interrupted her. 

“I’ll buy it.”

“Piers,” Mom said, signaling to the small with her eyes. I saw it in her expression: look for something bigger. Better. “Finish the tour and we can talk about it.”

“I’ll take it,” I repeated. “Tell me what to sign, how to pay. When’s the soonest move in date?”

I looked out the window again and saw a V of birds fly by. 

***

MARCH 2018

Every day, I sit on the same spot on the couch. It’s old and yellowed, bought from a garage sale, and tears mar every cushion. Cotton from inside scatters across the floor; Once a week, I try to force it back into the cushions, but it always finds its way out. 

And on those tattered cushions, I work from three to six in the afternoon. After I sleep and before I return to the hotel for my night shift at the valet parking. The silence at work allows writing and the windows allow research. 

The book had been present in my head since I was born, but it didn’t merge onto paper until senior year of high school, and since, I’ve been adding every day. Even before the first draft, I had years’ worth of notes and research already recorded in my journal. Some days are harder than others. I have all the time in the world but no answer to some questions. Still, I’ll find one. The journal thickens, the book develops. Soon, I’ll be done. Soon, I’ll have an answer for it all. For the birds. (for Amis).

***

OCTOBER 2006

The journal was a private relic meant only for my eyes, and when Mom tried to steal a look at it, I wouldn’t speak to her for days. Amis was the only one who ever saw the tallies. One day when I was gone, he snuck into my room and texted me a picture of the leather-bound cover and pages scratched with tallies and columns and asked what they meant. 

I could have lied. He might have believed me. But he was older and cooler, and I wanted to impress him. So I told the truth when I got home. I told him how I watched the birds. I told him I didn’t know why they crashed and I was going to find out.

He flipped through the pages and shrugged. He said, “Maybe they just want to die.” And he put the book down and left the room. 

Natalie Hampton is a junior at the Kinder High School for the Performing and Visual Arts in the Creative Writing Department. She is a 2022 YoungArts Finalist in Creative Nonfiction and a Scholastic Art & Writing Awards Gold Medalist. Beyond writing, she enjoys playing soccer, working in activism, and volunteering.