The day the pigeons left it took me a few hours to notice. I felt a nagging absence, like a missing tooth. Other people seemed to notice it too. People’s eyes moved more freely than normal, their heads turned to search for the thing they should be seeing People looked up. People don’t normally look up.
It was on the news. I paused by a TV set in a department store window on my way home. The missing pigeons were the funny 6.42pm story, just before the weather. They showed Trafalgar Square. No pigeons, but lots of people. There was a cute little interview with a crying girl holding a bag of seed. A quick interview with a pigeon fancier, “I don’t know how they got out of their cages.”
“Scattered showers to the North followed by heavy rain moving southwards.”
That night I dreamed of pigeons. Thousands of birds all round me. Like the time I was a little girl in Trafalgar Square. They had sharp claws and soft wings and bright, small eyes. The dusty fluttering stole my breath. I wanted to get out. A synchronised striking of wings. I rose with the cloud of birds.
There was bright spot on the horizon. It never moved, no matter how we turned round it. We chased it, but it grew no closer.
Then the flock turned again, away from the bright compass point. They left me behind, streaming away one by one. For a moment the air seemed enough to hold my weight. I reached for the light. But my fingers curled round nothing.
And I fell.
I lurched in my sleep, the sickening blur of dream and reality. Crawling out of bed, I still felt like a sleep walker.
It was a misty morning. I was glad the promised rain hadn’t come. The dawn light illuminated few cars. Most of the traffic was trucks.
I stuck out my thumb and tried to look just the right amount of unthreatening. Not so much as to look like a potential victim for psychos, but not too much to scare off potential rides. The key was all in the angle of slump.
My slumping paid off with a ride from a doctor who had been on a house call, called John. Sitting beside someone in a car gives you a skewed first impression in profile. He had a large nose, small chin, and oddly flat ears. His hair was neat, but his clothes crumpled from being out all night. His eyes darted to look at me occasionally as we spoke.
“Lucky I’m going that way. I’ll drop you off in the centre, OK?” he said.
“That’d be great. Thanks.” I picked at the zip on the top of my bag which rested between my knees.
“What’s your name?”
“Mavis. My parents didn’t like me very much.”
John chuckled. “Least it’s different.”
“I haven’t been home for a long time,” I said.
“Did you hear about the pigeons?” John changed the subject.
“Yeah.”
“What do you think happened? I reckon it’s a virulent strain of bird-flu. Vaporised them all,” he chuckled again.
“Maybe they went home,” I said.
“Where to though? Maybe they came from outer space millions of years ago and were just waiting for their pigeon mother-ship to pick them up.”
“Maybe.” I wasn’t a very good comedy audience. The dream was still making me feel all squirmy. It was the feeling you get after you’ve washed something gross off your hands, but still think 1 | 2 NEXT |
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