The unbearable heaviness of losing your pet (1/n)

They bought him one hot afternoon. July 2010 He wasn't supposed to be bought. Thrice already our previous parrots had died. Sometimes by overeating. Sometimes by fighting with one another ( we bought two once, kept them in the same cage). My parents tell me that they had taken the car ahead of the street side vendor, who had caged plenty of parrots in ridiculously small cages.

Apart from one. He was small, sitting on the shoulder of the vendor. So small that he looked a part of his abnormal shoulders. It was my mom, who asked to turn back the car and have a look at this one. The caged parrots were adults. Red colors around their neck, beaks perfectly formed and a long feather-ful tail. The free bird was small, round, with a deformed tail and almost no eyes.

My parents asked what was the price of that one. 150 Rs for that one and 100 rs for the caged ones except the cage. You might think that I was a stupid deal, but in all reality, it was a perfect deal. The parrot sitting on the vendor's shoulder was domesticated. No thread was attached to his legs. Yet he did not fly. He sat there with his small grey eyes looking everywhere and not understanding a single word. My father tried to touch him with his fingers. He didn't bite my father. Instead he made his eyes big and make a funny noise from his throat. But still my father was able to touch him over his head. He hesitated for a moment, but he seemed to like the smell and feel of my father's finger. Suddenly, he shrugged his neck towards the sky and brought his neck forward. He wanted my father to touch him there.

At that moment, we had a new pet in our home.

Our love affair with pets has been terrible. Me and my sister are dog crazy creatures. I like dogs more than humans. So many times we had argued and fought with our parents to allow us to keep a dog, but they never allowed. My sister loved gold fishes. She brought 2 of them for a hundred bucks and kept them in the quintessential oval bowl. They both dried pretty soon. Overfed. We were kids back then. When we grew up, we brought the parrots, who unfortunately, didn't seem to enjoy our company and preferred to die. It made us really sad that we were not able to take care of them properly. Having pets is like having someone who follows and loves the owner blindly. When they are dead and buried, rivers flow down the eyes, especially if the responsibility of the pet has been handed to the children.

When my parents brought this small bird, me and my sister were both equally surprised. Last time our parrots fought a civil war, we had decided, temporarily, not to bring pets as it turned out to be their graveyard. But this one looked different. He was born probably 2 months back. Features were not really sharp, nor he was quick or responsive and talkative. But we immediately liked him. He was sitting on father's shoulder when I spotted him. Green as spinach with a nose as red as a clowns.

I looked at the skies running my hands over my eyes

And I fell out of bed hurting my head from things that I said