The Pigeon

The blues jam was playing at The Morrison Hotel. It was the first Sunday of February and there was a crowd of customers there for the monthly jam session.

The day was scathingly hot and languid, with a kind of oppression you get in Brisbane summers when the days have piled on top of each other like dominoes: with little rain or respite. Nerves taut and jangled like a tightly compressed spring. Anarchy in the air.

The air reverberated with waves of humid intense heat. Thickened and soupy. We pigeons looked down upon the people gathered for the musical afternoon with only vague interest. We fluttered together, cooing and posturing. Too hot even for birds.

I flew up into the rafters above the tables that are set up around the outside of the hotel. Watching the humans eating, drinking, conversing, tapping their toes to the music, posturing, posing.

Such strange creatures…humans…but good for chips or other delicious scraps.

A group of people arrive, a man and two women. I watch them excitedly wend their way to a table at the end of the veranda. One woman sits down with a little curly black dog on a leash. The other walks inside the hotel with the man to order drinks and a bowl of chips.

Another man comes to the table and addresses the woman with great affection and geniality. He’d been chatting to another woman when the three people arrived. So it seemed odd that he came to their table.

We pigeons flutter to the ground, keeping a scampering bipedaled distance from the woman and her little dog. We flew in little mad pirouettes around each other. Delighting in the heat, the sunshine and our birdy shenanigans.

The woman and man are back from inside the hotel. The woman, wearing a turquoise green dress with lovely embroideries all over it, sits down, begins devouring her chips with the stolid determination of a person who loves food.

I watch, carefully and hopefully but I do not beg her for a chip and unusually she does not offer me one. I can tell she is a kind person. She smells of birds. She must have pet birds at home. There is something else unique about her smell. She smells like all humans used to smell 6 years ago. But something has changed and I can’t quite pinpoint what that is.

She eats her bowl of chips happily and sips her drink of what humans call “Jack Daniel’s and coke”. The couple sitting opposite her are her friends. They look upon her with great affection. Even I, a stranger, a pigeon can observe that.

The man sitting to her left is strange. He sits with his right shoulder, a quarter turn away from her. As though she is not in his flock. Not worthy of being spoken to, or engaging with.

The turquoise green dressed woman just smiles quietly, eats, drinks, observes. I get the sense she is mildly offended. That she was supposed to be introduced to the man. But he has been preoccupied with talking to the couple and completely ignored her.

And astonishingly, she is not too bothered by this rudeness or socially inappropriate affront. She focuses her interested attention on other people sitting at other tables. She smiles at another woman sitting nearby. They are both wearing similar pendants. Hers a howlite blue one that she made herself, the other woman’s pendant is a turquoise green colour. The woman returns her smile affably.

A younger couple in their late 30s join the long table where the four people are sitting. They are shy and smile kindly at the turquoise green lady. She smiles back, relieved to find other friendly faces.

She studies the younger man as he has beautiful shoulder length hair and his young lady is also beautiful. I can sense an ache in her as she is alone, even with her friends and I can tell she is missing her own offspring. So she smiles kindly at the young couple and allows the emotional angst to seep out of her, down into the ground.

The little dog who is named Koko walks up to her, wanting attention. I watch her bend down and scoop her up into her arms. The little dog leans back in her arms and rests her head on her shoulder while the woman gently rubs her belly.

She declares loudly “You would have to be Insane NOT to love this dog. Just look at her…she’s perfect”. The couple who own her, nod and smile with great pride and delight.

The younger couple watch her loving the dog and they too smile and their faces shine with joy and delight.

I watch from above, earnestly disgusted at that woman, cuddling the dog …my enemy, my threat…as though she is her own child. A woman who smells of birds and earth and her own pristine humanness. Who is this woman? Why does she feel so comfortable with the dog and not her own species. Why is she here?

Why is that man ignoring her so rudely ? Why are they here? I lean out from the rafter at the ceiling, safe, confidant in my upper realms of sacred pigeonesque space. Once we bore messages, in times of war or other tribulations. Now we watch the world spin on a dime, slightly off balance, out of kilter with the rest of the cosmos.

The humans smell weird, behave weird. But we wild birds. We are the same. Holding our own as we have always done. Flying free. Living as we have always done, according to our own specific breeds.

So I am peering down at her. Willing her to notice me. She cradles and coos to the dog. The dog smiles happily. Her aged yellow teeth gleaming in the hot sun.

Suddenly, the woman looks up at the ceiling. She sees me, peering down at her. She does not flinch or act surprised. She merely returns my beautiful outraged birdy gaze. Two sets of eyes…staring into each other’s souls. Mine, small and black and piercing with outrage…hers…blue and clear and somehow grounded and sanguine. I could smell her anxiety with the human…but her eyes project to me only peace, and love and acquiescence.

There is something unique about this woman. She is not like the others. I can see she loves us. All of us. Birds, animals, herself. Even the obnoxious other humans who have no idea who she is. But I know. She knows I know. So we stare at each other for about ten wingbeats.

The people at her table witness her and I communing. They start laughing. It’s beautiful and strange. Our connectivity.

She drops her head down and says “the pigeon is upset I have the dog so close. I have been Told today!”” She giggles. Everyone laughs. I am not laughing. I am quite serious. I am not insane about not wanting the dog in my space. Dogs attack birds. Even very pretty cute ones like her dog friend is. But I am impressed with this woman. She “speaks” both bird and energy.

I realise I am safe with her. She realises she is safe with me. Her arranged “friend” blind date with the human man might not have worked out but she is happy she has befriended me! Bird love is eternal!

Copyright Tanya Désirée Arons