Recently I remembered something from my early childhood. It probably ties in to the visceral “No, put it back!” response I have to pictures of someone holding helpless baby birds, and hey, maybe to my empathy for Yuuya.

There’s a fic where Yuuya didn’t really stop and think about what he was doing as he was doing it and then was horrified… now that I think of it, I can relate.

I was little and clumsy, but allowed to be outside in my aunt’s yard for a while without supervision. I found mourning doves in a nest so close to the ground that I could reach it, and I took out the eggs and carried them off with the idea that I’d take them home and hatch them. Dumbass kid plans.

Almost immediately I dropped one. It was just yolk and white, no big deal. Then I dropped the other onto the pavement, and it had this almost-formed fetal bird in it that twitched a little and was awful.

I remember that I cried to my parents about it, but I didn’t tell them it was my fault. They just thought I’d found it there and the wind had smashed it or something.

For years it was like this awful secret, and I always felt guilty. Huh. I haven’t thought about it in a long time.