The little alien
A Harlan Ellison line: Do you realize just how much pain there is in the world?
I got reminded of this today. We had a visitor at work.

I work on commuter trains in a big mechanical shop, and I'm going over to a set of little-used janitorial shelves up against one wall, looking for a hand brush, when I notice something unusual on the edge of a higher shelf. A little visitor from far away.
Or at least a hundred or so feet away - the nearest opening to outdoors - and this little guy's closest preferred environment would be several times that distance. But there he is, perched on the edge of the shelf, alien in an alien setting, totally out of his tree. A hummingbird. Just over thumb-sized. Apparently fast asleep, or zoned due to cold. But it's not that cold in here...
I puff a breath of air at him to wake him up, assuming he'll just zoom off. He breathes faster and moves a little, but otherwise tries to ignore me. Repeatedly. I must be scaring him plenty, but he won't move away. This is not a good survival strategy...
And I realize that this little guy isn't okay. He's in trouble, some kind of trouble that makes a big loud pushy dominant-lifeform scary human seem acceptable by comparison. Sick, or injured... he may not have long to be a visitor here.
He seems like he's breathing okay, and he's balancing well enough when I blow on him to get a reaction - but all he does is tilt his beak upward and sit there on the edge of the shelf. I can almost picture his little brain chirping leave-me-alone wishes at all this human stuff he's surrounded by. I know I'm upsetting him. Probably not near as much as a cat, or any of the other predacious critters out there would if they had found him like this, but still. I should leave him alone, he'll be more at peace.. but something to do first. I'm not being a good host.
Hummingbirds eat a lot, mostly sugar water or its natural equivalent. Could this guy have run out of gas, the way bees do? I try to give him a few drops of sweet juice from my breakfast. No motion. I drip a drop on his beak. He moves a bit, can't tell if he drank any.
I've got a job to do. Thankfully, it's close by, so I can look up and check to see if he moves or drinks the juice I left in a little red cap in front of him. I look up every so often. Sometimes I think I see him move, but it's only a little.
I keep checking on him all day...

..and I'm thinking like crazy...
It's just a little bird. I've seen dead hummingbirds in our trains before, and always wondered how anything as big and clumsy as a train managed to get something so agile. I've always liked hummingbirds, it seems they're almost fearless sometimes, and if I could move like that I'd be fearless too.. maybe that's what got him? He's probably dying, and he came in here because it was warmer and didn't have cats.. fat lot of good that does him! But a predator would have been a scarier way to go... but that's the way it Usually happens! MOST critters end up in horror, in something's jaws... even predators...
...and the horror doesn't even have to be something that actually kills you. He's probably a lot more scared of me than he is of whatever is actually killing him... And it's only one little bird... there's even a biblical ref: "are not two sparrows sold for a copper coin? Yet not one sparrow falls to the ground apart from the Father's will..." it's the way of the world.

That's a hell of a lot of pain, fear and anguish out there.
The world is built on this. For all the things feeling it right now - stretched back for the last couple billion years.
(Sorrow. You're soaking in it.)

Weird stuff to be thinking of at work. And not compatible with the work I'm doing, or my peace of mind, either...

I check on him one last time before I leave, and he's moved... not perched any more, but sort of huddled beak-down on the shelf. Not good.
I move him a bit and put his beak right in the little cap of sweet stuff I left him at lunch... and he perks a tiny bit. If he wants, at least he can drink effortlessly...
He was still breathing when I left.
Hey, he doesn't even have to hover in place to get a drink! To him, how cool must that be?
Maybe it's his idea of heaven...


EDIT: He was gone when I saw him this morning, but he left me a gift...
His eyes were open yesterday evening; today I found him eyes closed, flopped beakfirst into the cap of juice, just as if he'd fallen asleep while drinking...
Thank you, little guy. I'm honored you chose to find peace in my shop (what a thought!), honored to know you...

...? (In the words of a friend, "Oh, such bullshit!")

No. I didn't really know you. I encountered a poor sick critter who was too busy in misery to really show me who you were. Most of what I think of as our encounter took place in my head; and I don't know what happened in yours, or if you noticed me at all except as an additional ordeal that came and went at times during the course of your last day. And hummingbirds may not be into the idea of friends; other creatures probably fall into categories of probable predators, mother, mates, and competition...
I've seen them in action, and they're aggressive and territorial like all getout. Some friends and I once named the local hummer that claimed our feeder "Messerschmitt" for his fighter-combat aerobatics and martial attitude. At ease, he was just this adorable little guy, incongruously perched on a twig - but let an intruder show up and there he went, scramble alert, immelmanns and wingovers, cheepacheepacheepacheepacheepa machine-gun battle cry, defending vital airspace... we were endlessly amused at Messerschmitt, and kept his feeder stocked to keep him around. This little guy reminded me of him, but only in idle form; no fuel, no energy to respond for one last mission...
Maybe I gave you peace, maybe it was just another annoyance... maybe my part in it was more for me than you.
But still.

And there was something else.
Yesterday I'd thought he was one of the drabbest hummers I'd seen, sorta grayish with only a bit of color. No more. Maybe I had just been at the wrong angles to see, whatever; but somehow his passing brought out the greens and blues in his coat, and this Incredible prismatic color-changing splash of florescent magenta-fuschia-orange-violet around his face... wow.

Rest in peace, little guy.