Hi. You don’t know me. I’m a bird. My brothers and I live in Tapuio where we spend most of our time sitting on branches watching the monkeys and the seriemas. They’re both kind of high strung but it’s more entertaining than Rede Globo, the only channel we can get in Tapuio *groan*.
I wanted to take a minute to talk to you about David. (Don’t worry, he won’t see this. He’s off hugging a tree or something.) He’s got this idea, you see, and I happen to think it’s a really great idea.
Oh, I know how he is. I mean, I have to live with him. He is soooo dramatic! He’s a fucking drama queen! Everything is always so important to him. Make a big deal about everything. You should see him! They got these big rhinoceros beetles, big dumb fucks always landing on their backs, little legs twitching in the air. If anything ever deserved the Darwin Award, its them. Please, do us a favor and step on those things! But he goes around turning them back over, setting them back up so that they can just fly around and fall on their backs again. He’ll do this all night until he turns out the light! I just want to yell at him. But then I see it, how happy he looks.
He doesn’t even kill the spiders! Those things, they’ll kill ya. They won’t even blink an eye. Cold little fuckers. And he just goes and gets the broom and offers it to them. You should see it. They charge that broom like zombies at Harvard, biting and gnashing and injecting venom all over the place. But he just carries the broom outside and shakes them off. No big deal.
And I start to get it. It’s love.
He loves this place.
I’ve seen him get up at three in the morning, grab his flashlight, and go chasing hunters like some idiot crazy man running through the trees in his underwear. I mean, what’s he gonna do if he actually catches one? Hit him with the flashlight? But I think, Yeah! He would. And I think, You go!
I think, It’s love! He loves Tapuio. Me? I was born here so I never really thought about it too much. But him? He loves this place.
It’s Thanksgiving up there in the United States. We don’t have that here. But I know how you guys celebrate. You sit around the table thanking everybody because they love you and all and I was thinking, I don’t think David cares too much about that. Hell, the guy’s alone most of the time. I don’t think too many people actually love him. And honestly, he’s really not that easy to love. He’s always in a bad mood, always complaining about something. He won’t even let you eat meat at his house. And if you’re a smoker, forget it. He’ll talk trash about you to everybody. But I get the feeling that he’d say he’s thankful that he gets to love the people in his life, the land under him, the trees around him.
Here in Brazil when somebody tells you you are good looking, we tell them it’s their eyes. Meaning the beauty is in them. I think that’s what David sees, the beauty in others, the beauty in the land, the beauty. Think about it. The opposite of love isn’t hate, it’s indifference. You only complain about what you love.
And you know something else? He’s got the right idea. I know he talks too much and makes a big deal about everything, but isn’t life a big deal, after all? Isn’t it?
And I thought, he’s doing this for me. I’m just a little bird and he’s doing this for me!
I like that.
And I think he’s got the right idea. Biologists, environmentalists, they need to come here, to Tapuio. They always go to these pretty places with lots of wildlife and big fields and nice trees. But that just ain’t the way most of the world is anymore. Most places are like Tapuio, half destroyed, half struggling. Hunters blasting anything that moves, people chopping down everything that grows, birds in cages hanging from walls.
Birds in cages.
It’s just not right.
You know?
He’s got a big plan for Tapuio, and probably none of it will happen. But like Hersh said in The Walking Dead, you take risks. You risk your life when you breathe the air, when you drink the water, when you walk outside. What matters isn’t the risk you take, but what you are taking the risk for.
His dream for Tapuio makes sense.
So give him some support, y’all. Let him know his risk is worthwhile. Visit him and tell others to visit him. If you got any doubts, ask him. He won’t bite. He’s a vegan.
Like I said, you don’t know me. And I don’t know you. But you know David. You know him.
Gotta go. David’s coming back. Oh, God. He’s got a praying mantis on his shirt. That thing’s gonna climb up his face and eat his eyeballs!

Peace, y’all!