Flight of Fancy

There are moments in ones life that we look back on with amusement and consider the path that we could have taken. There are moments when, out of sheer dim-witted foolery we say yes to things out of awkward, well-intentioned ignorance. We say “Sure” when really we mean, “No. Go away. This is the worst idea you’ve ever had, go get yourself checked out by a head doctor.”

Arthur was one of those decisions.

Arthur, you see, is a pigeon. Not just any pigeon of course. Arthur is a race pigeon. Won an award for being a race pigeon. With his dumb cooing and flapping wings and general bird-brained attitude and, God knows, I don’t know nothing about pigeons.

So, why Suzie’s grandad asked me to look after him I’ll be damned before I know.

Going out for the holidays, going somewhere fancy, he said. Going away to Spain with the missus. Where the sun is, he said.

 Why couldn’t Suzie look after him, I said. She’s busy with work, he said. Yeah, well I’m a big strong, dumbass, aren’t I? I said, I don’t fear birds.

Yeah, turns out I don’t know jack-all about birds.

So while this flip-flapping rat with wings sits on top of my bookcase like a speckled mockery of The Raven, cooing its rendition of “Nevermore”, I ask myself why Suzie and I are still together.

Suzie, who is staying at her mother’s house while this pigeon destroys everything I hold dear.

Did I need tips? Suzie’s grandad asked. No no, I’d replied. Not necessary. It’s a bird, isn’t it? A small, speckled idiot with a brain the size of a walnut.

I could phone him, I think. I could google how to trap a pigeon. I could google how to lamp a pigeon to death and make it look like an accident. But its a big vacant eyes stare back with the menacing glare of a madman deciding between left and right. I don’t think it has the capacity for evil, but every now and then I catch it watching me.

I think it might kill me in my sleep. Perhaps I should off it first.

I am not a violent person, but this pigeon has a killer glare. It coos, so gently, but then its little head tilts. The tilt says “You wanna go, mate”. If Arthur could talk he’d say it in a cockney accent. I might hide my knives.

I used to like Suzie, and her grandad. We aren’t married yet, but I think I have already decided on a divorce.

My house is covered in white and stinks. I didn’t mean to open the bird cage, but how else am I supposed to put the food in? The bowls are angled in such a wretched way, the clasps that hold them in might snap my fingers off if I tried to remove them.

Look at its beak. That’s the beak of a killer. A cooing killer that lures you in and flaps away, goring you with its leathery feet. The kind of feet old women that wear ridiculous shoes have. The kind of feet that could take your eye out in an emergency.

There are oats on the table. He doesn’t want the oats, he wants blood. I bet he can smell fear.

Not that I’m scared. No. This isn’t fear, this is the worry of a man who has come to accept death. This is what the Christmas holidays are all about. The acceptance of death. The knowledge that death is inevitable and comes for us all. Death comes in the form of wings. Purple wings apparently.

I’m sleeping on the couch tonight with one eye open. Might open the bedroom window “by accident”. No bird, no problem.

Might phone Suzie and tell her I’m seeing another woman. I wonder if she’d fly off the handle. Fly. Another word relating to pigeons. It’s watching me now. From across the room. The blackness in its eyes says more than words ever could. It says that my relationship is over.

Once you say yes to babysitting your girlfriend’s grandad’s pigeon you enter into the dividing choice that is; one, this is it. This is my life until I pass. I must look after this treacherous creature periodically until the sweet release of death releases me from its creepy leathers talons, or you say, No, I’m not having any of this, and then Suzie dumps me for saying no.

Go and eat the oats, I tell it in my head. Go. Stare at something else. It would only take a couple of seconds distraction. I would open the window. Grab it, launch it from the third floor of the flat window and maybe it would fly into an oncoming bus. Suzie would never forgive me, but my bookcase would be free of it. My house would slowly return to being featherless and maybe, one day, it would no longer stink of ammonia and bird.

Maybe I should just move house. Pack up and start again in India or somewhere further away like the moon. There’s birds in India, but there’s no birds on the moon. Unless in the time it takes me to get there, a race of alien harpies decide to colonise it with- No, it doesn’t bear thinking.

There’s the phone. I bet its Suzie, phoning to tell me that a pack of raging emu’s have attacked her grandad and now I have to keep the bird. No, it is Suzie, but she’s phoning to tell me that she’s on her way and so proud of me for taking in the bird. How lovely. This is how relationships end. This is how the world ends.

She arrives ten minutes later and I am not happy. I am going to tell her I’m not happy. When she knocks on the door, I answer it with the face of complete devastation. She smiles and me and tells me that she didn’t know I liked birds. I ask if she likes birds. She tells me everyone likes birds.

I am going to tell her. I will tell her I hate birds. Especially this one. This one is sent straight from the rookeries of hell. I hate its eyes of spiraling black depths like the yawning, gaping chasm that hellfire spews from.

Why don’t we get a bird, she says. A little budgie for the living room, she says.

I’m cheating on you, I say.

What, she says.

Yes, I say. With another bird, I say.

She laughs. The pigeon, she asks.

Get it out of my house, I say.

She laughs again. It’s just a pigeon, she says. And then she sees the festering devastation that was once my house.

Oh, she says. If this is what you’re like with pets, maybe we shouldn’t have kids together.

I take a deep breath, and open the window.

The pigeon coos its harrowing coo of death. It is mocking me. It is laughing at me. I will hear its cooing baritone in my soul when they lock me up for the murder of every pigeon in London on Christmas morn. Save us, the birds will cry. But it will be too late. I will be there with a sawn off shotgun and I will have gone mad.

I may already be mad. Mad from staring into the eyes of a pigeon.