It was such an bizarre feeling to carefully cup a native bird - a wild, restless spirit - in the palm of your hand for 10 minutes or more.
Live long enough and funny things happen in life. Bang, right out of the blue.
Then that one little thing triggers a chain of things.
And it's like the domino effect; there's an alignment of happenstance, where one action almost inexorably leads to another.
And only later do you pause to think: how did that happen, and why?
This strange but god's-honest-truth tale starts thusly:
It's late morning and the bloke in front in a station wagon hits a bird on Belconnen Way.
He didn't mean to, of course, it was that Larry (more on that later) swooped when he shouldn't and smacked old mate's windscreen in a puff of feathers as the twin lanes of turning traffic were accelerating off into Benjamin Way from the change of lights.
Well, Larry, he's done a half-pike, flopped over old mate's roof, and plonked, stunned as an ... er, eastern rosella, on the roadway right in front of me.
We are all moving off (not in a pacey manner, mind you, because my Outback has over 200k on her now and the turbo-diesel engine takes a while to spool up), but in that split second from take-off, you think: don't let him roll under a wheel.
Please.
But after years of making plenty of good ... well, lucky, split-decisions in the driver's seat of many cars, fast and slow, over the years, it opened the odds, a bit, in Larry's favour.
Missed him by that much, glanced in the rear-view mirror and there's Larry, one wing flopping on the bitumen, not looking well. But most certainly and unequivocally alive.
So, what to do?
The traffic appeared to be clear around so after jumping on the picks, hitting the hazard lights and trotting back, it was a matter of scooping Larry carefully off the tarmac and examining him to see if the damage was terminal.
My scheduled meeting with the cops down the road at Winchester Police Centre (a friendly one) was already overdue, so then came the conundrum.
Pondering next actions with the bird in hand, an older lady, sunglasses on, sailed past an arm's length away, on the inside lane, in her Kia Cerato, just to catch the green light.
I strongly suspect she didn't even see Larry or I at all or if so, gave no indication that a person standing in the middle of the road, holding a bird, warranted even a moment of her attention.
The traffic lights had cycled red again by now, of course, so now I'm sitting behind the wheel, looking down, and thinking: hmmm, okay, smart ass, now what?
Well, that's when Larry and I began trawling the streets of Belconnen trying to find a vet.
This entailed driving one-handed and agreed officer, that's an offence right there but Larry, oddly enough, seemed quite content to just sit in the palm of my cupped right hand, and moving him from where he seemed comfortable might do more damage.
His wing looked little dodgy (hey, I'm no ornithologist) and the claws on his left leg were curled up but generally, he was quite chipper in his demeanour, looking about, settling in and appearing to put a great deal of trust in a human he'd never met before.
And he was eyeballing me, like: well, get on with it; I'm injured here, you idiot.
So we weaved our way through the back streets of Belconnen, completed a lap of the Medical Centre car park, through the Town Centre car park, cursed the car's satnav for the third time, escaped, and finally ended up at the Totterdell Street clinic. Trust me, it's not the easiest place to find.
On arrival and check-in, the vet, I was politely told, was busy desexing a cat.
But Larry seemed to sense he was in safe hands and received some love: a towel was produced, and he was duly and expertly bundled in the charge of people who knew a lot more about birds than I did.
Quite a lot, it seems.
"Lucky, isn't it?" the vet's assistant said, smiling, after that awkward moment of bird handover.
"Sorry?"
"The vet who is on today," the young lady said. "She has a very keen interest in birds. Loves birds. Especially native birds. Gee, he's a quiet one, isn't he?"
And clunk. There it was.
I gave Larry a nod, like, geez cobber, you really lucked in.
Did he nod back? I'm not sure.
I left my name and phone number, just in case, and haven't got a clue why. It's not like I have a connection with birds.
The only bird I've ever owned was Basil the budgie, many years ago, who had the run of the house, whistled merrily whenever drinks were poured, terrorised other animals and nearly met his fully doused demise in a generous glass of Jacob's Creek sauvignon blanc.
Only some time later, after apologising for my lateness at the meeting and deciding that any explanation of what just happened would sound totally ludicrous, did this Belconnen encounter seem like such a curious turn of events.
It was such an bizarre feeling to carefully cup a native bird - a wild, restless spirit - in the palm of your hand for 10 minutes or more, stupidly trying to follow the directions of a non-updated satnav system on an impromptu tour of Belconnen, then having to resort to Google Maps on a cell phone (offence number two, officer, further apologies).
Larry shat on me, too, just a little but that's okay.
And further: ever tried holding a bird in one hand, your phone in the other, and do the damn-where's-my-mask self-patdown of every pocket before you make the delivery?
Awkward doesn't begin to describe it.
But it was worth it; it all turned out for the best.
It was just a very odd thing to happen.
