The bell peppers are firm and satin smooth to my touch. With one whack of the knife, I cut through the crisp green skin to lay open its viscera that I scrape away and flush down the drain.

Chop. Chop. Chop. While the knife in my hand crashes down to meet the target on my mother's old, stained cutting board, the cat rubs up against my leg. Winding her lithe body around and around, the conniving vixen/ballerina plots her next move.

Onions and bell peppers dance as they sauté and couple with sweet Italian sausages on the red-hot surface. The fragrance of nature's bounty intoxicates me. Breathing hard, inhaling the heady aroma, I almost swoon.

In the living room, a bird flies into the picture window above the sofa while I am stirring the soup. I see it when I lift the spoon from the heated pan. The bird seeks my eyes and I his only a nano-second before the unavoidable collision into humanity's world, before his small body catapults to the ground in a daze.

My spoon-hand in mid-air, I wonder should I rescue the small, dull-colored songbird, or should I allow nature to take its course. Survival of the fittest or what? What kind of bird is it? A Sparrow? A Finch? It is so small, poor little thing. I can't leave the soup. The onions, peppers and sausages need my attention. It's my job.

While I pour chicken broth into a deep pot (according to the recipe instructions), the first movement of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony blasts my ears in a calamitous roar. Dada da duummmm.

I turn down the burner to simmer, stroll over to the window. The bird -- it is indeed a sparrow, not long out of the nest I fear, flops harum-scarum in the soft grass. Disoriented, frightened, in need of protection only a mother can give. Overcome with a sudden stillness, he turns to gaze up through the barrier window and our eyes lock once again.

"Help," the bird's thoughts convey.

"I have to cook the soup," I convey to the bird before stepping away from his judgmental gaze.

"I have to cook the soup. It's my job," I mutter.

Then slowly, painfully, the sparrow lifts its head high, puffs up its little body and shakes its feathers. In a gesture as noble as any I have ever witnessed, it shoots me with one last look before limping into a nearby shrub, there to heal or be eaten by a stray cat. Who can know?

The soup, my favorite -- Italian Sausage and Penne Pasta -- is bubbling when I lift the lid to check.

While I was making soup tragedy struck just outside my comfort zone.

There was a resolution of sorts while the soup continued to simmer.

Then life, as we know it, went on as before.