I work at an airport.

And there are many airplanes, coming and going all around the damn place. I, as an airport employee, am forced to stop for airplanes. I speed up for airplanes. I slow down for airplanes. I watch airplanes fly over my head. I watch airplanes take off, and watch them land.

I watch machines push airplanes back, and other machines pull them forward. There are machines to wash the airplanes. There are machines to help fix the airplanes. In the winter, there are machines to spray the airplanes with toxic blue syrupy liquid. In the summer there are machines to cool down the airplanes, those machines don’t work very well.

The airplanes are similar to birds, in that they have the ability to fly. They are unlike birds in every other way.

Inside the airport terminal, where people walk and gather and eat, there are many birds trapped inside. The creators of the airport terminal, cleverly anticipating this situation I assume, had installed many false trees so that the birds may have a place to stay. There are false trees about ever thirty yards or so. The humans inside the terminal have no use for these trees.

The creators of the terminal have also installed an amazingly elaborate birdbath. The birdbath is about fifteen feet in diameter, it shoots out many amazing trails of water into the air. The birds can wash themselves in this filtered water, they also drink the water. The humans inside the terminal have no use for the elaborate birdbath.

The creators have also accommodated the birds by installing a Starbucks under a forest of plastic trees. The birds nest above Starbucks. The adult birds, and young alike, all shit on Starbucks and the chairs surrounding it.

Without knowledge of the outside world, the birds just keep on living and reproducing and shitting. The birds live their entire lives inside the airport terminal.

I thought about letting the birds free. I thought about capturing them and driving out to the country and opening up the cardboard box that housed the little sparrows. What would the birds do in the wild?

Would they fly to the nearest Starbucks and shit on it?