The Necro-Ornithology Of Eliza Gauger

Over the weekend, the lovely Eliza Gauger (fellow Nabokovian, ex-Kotakuite and Wired.com blogger) sent me an email, laden with numerous pictures of her cuddling a beautiful owl she found dead by the side of the road.

This particular owl, illustrated further in the photoset to which he belongs on Flickr, is in near-perfect condition (he suffers from a broken scapula so that one wing is floppy, and a few bloodstains. Other than that, nary a feather out of place) and appears entirely undecayed except that his eyes are simply hollow slits, which gives him a mask-like visage. He is, as you can see, still limp. And I cannot detect any odor from him whatsoever.

And that is why I picked him up and took him with me. He represents my best "find" in my experience with finding things of this sort, and I am now at a loss for what to do with him during the duration of my stay in hotels and other peoples' homes. Currently he is iced in a hotel bucket, swaddled in many protective layers of plastic... ultimately, he represents such a lovely specimen in his entirety that I think I will... have him properly preserved in a fitting attitude of owlishness.

For those who find the idea of an alabaster-skinned sylph cuddling an owl's rotting corpse pretty oogy, please note the big plastic gloves, which at least slightly mitigates the necro-ornithology of it all. And hey, it's all fair game: "You are all welcome, and in fact encouraged, to turn me into decorative, morbid, or curious objects after I am dead. Anything else would just be a waste of raw material."

You just described the recurring fantasy of our friendship, Eliza! After all, dead girls don't say no.

Last of the Kuiper Bedouins [Eliza Gauger]