Free Touching Spirit Bear by Ben Mikaelsen Page B

day. Cole eyed the birds as he struggled to concentrate. Something in those branches had been important. His gaze wandered to the ripped-up grass under the splintered branches and crushed boughs. What had been so important in that maze of destruction? He spotted a small, brown, fist-sized clump oftwigs not ten feet away.
    The nest.
    That was it! That was what he had been searching for. Something about that nest was important. But what?
    And then he found them.
    First one, then two, then a third and fourth—four lifeless baby sparrows, scattered in the short grass where they had been thrown from their nest. Matted fuzz covered the twisted little bodies. Two had died with their big yellow beaks open as if searching for food. The other two lay facing the nest, their necks reaching out. Even in death, the sparrows had strained toward their nest. They had tried to make it back to the safety of their home.
    Cole envied the dead sparrows. He had never really known any home. It sure wasn’t the big brick building that his parents landscaped and fixed up to impress the neighbors. Nor was it the empty space he returned to most days after school. Even before his parents’ divorce, Cole had always wanted to run away from that place.
    As Cole stared at the tiny bodies, sadness flooded through him. The sparrows were so frail, helpless, and innocent. They hadn’t deserved to die. Then again, what right did they have to live? This haunted Cole. Did the birds’ insignificant little existences have any meaning at all? Or did his?
    He watched one solitary gray sparrow hopping among the broken branches near the nest. Was that the mother? Was she looking for her young? Cole licked his cracked and dried lips. At least the babies had a mother to search for them. Nobody, not even a scrawny gray bird, was looking for him.
    Cole’s eyes grew moist. He couldn’t stop thinking about the tiny birds strewn in the grass. Had they suffered before they died? Or did their fragile existence just suddenly stop? And what had happened to their energy when their hearts quit beating? It didn’t seem right that now maggots would eat the bodies. Or maybe they would just rot into the ground to help the grass grow. Maybe that was the circle Edwin had spoken of. You live, die, and rot, then something else lives, dies, and rots.
    Cole understood this cycle. Beside him a tree had died. Already, ants and bugs crawled among the cracked bark and splintered wood. For them life went on. In a few weeks they would make new homes from the wood. With time, the tree would rot and become dirt. Then a new seed would fall and grow, and another tree would push upward. Years later, that tree would fall back to earth and begin the cycle all over again.
    Yes, death was part of living. Cole knew hisown body would eventually die and decay and be reduced to dirt. That was okay. That was how the world worked. But how had the world benefited from his living? Was he no better than a tree or some weed? Was his life just fertilizer for the soil?
    Cole grunted angrily—he didn’t want to die yet. Yes, someday that would be part of his circle. Someday he would lie in his own waste and be eaten by maggots. But not now! Suddenly, in that moment, Cole made a simple decision.
    He wanted to live.
    In death there was no control, no anger, no one to blame, no choices, no nothing. To be alive was to have choice. The power to choose was real power, not the fake power of making others afraid. Cole knew he had used that fake power many times. All of his life he had squandered his choices, wallowing in revenge and self-pity, keeping himself down. Now, as he lay near death, those he had hated were safe and warm. Those he had blamed were still alive and well. He had hurt himself most. Life was empty and meaningless unless he found some meaning.
    Maybe it was a vision or maybe just a thought. Maybe a hallucination. A simple image entered Cole’s mind: a tiny sparrow in a nest, helpless, neck straining