Fight or flight.

• Position: Brief Article

Nobody paid much mind when the mockingbird chased a cardinal -- thunk -- into one of the floor-to-ceiling windows that make up our ground-level office's exterior walls. Of course, that was before a panic-stricken woman -- bompf -- bounced off the tempered glass, then scurried away, flailing her arms over her head like Tippi Hedren in The Birds.

By that time, most of my staff had stopped using the back door leading to our assigned parking spaces, which they had forsaken rather than run an avian gantlet. We had already complained to the landlord and got what amounted to a shrug. What could anybody do?

From earliest childhood I had known that killing a songbird was a grievous federal offense, one on par with removing the tag from a mattress. Even on the off chance that my grasp of criminal law was not as tight as I liked to think, I knew nobody -- especially me -- wanted to run afoul of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. Forget Janet Reno and her jackbooted constabulary, I'd rather cross a coven of hypercompetitive serial killers than have PETAphiles on my case.

Not only were the aerial assaults taking their toll on everybody's nerves -- the bird had a bad habit of waiting until you turned your back before striking -- but tensions were starting to run high in the office. Though not a card-carrying bunny hugger, controller Laura Gosser would retire to her office in a huff anytime anyone mentioned revenge against the terror from above, emerging only to tout her native Texas' death-penalty tally in water-cooler confabs. Her principled opposition did sway...