columba livia

7/28/2019 Columba Livia

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Columba Livia.

I DREAMT the pigeons got into the house, she said.

He half rolled-towards-her, still drenched in sleep, and stroked her softly in the eye. She

was wide awake, he could feel her eyeballs twitching as they traced the cornices of the

Berkshire White ceiling, a perfect square of trembling eyelashes, never-eat-soggy-weetbix,

never-eat-soggy-weetbix, like the mathematical course of a housefly.

It was the same every morning. Five am, the first timorous coo floating in from the

balcony. She moans gently and rolls to one side, plants her feet on the cool floorboards,

waits for the blood to settle in her head. A second bleating coo, more audacious this

time. She stumbles with zombie-like precision to the living room, flings wide the screen

door, grapples for the broom, stabs violently into the dark until she hears the clumsy

clattering of wings and startled bird-cries. Back in the warmth of the bed-nest, he presses

an assuaging palm to her thigh and she slips back into the cosy syrup of her morning-

dreams, more vivid and more bizarre than the rambling epics of r-e-m sleep. But the

pigeons colonise her dreams, build nests of acrid white shit-and-feathers inside her head:

childhood acquaintances transmogrify into little robot-headed owls, pigeon-voiced owls;

their vocabulary contracts, becomes repetitive, vowels elongate; the shrill lament of a

telephone morphs into the vile purring of lovesick pigeons. She wakes again, searches the

ceiling for sleep, concedes defeat, again makes the futile pilgrimage to the balcony door.

Emboldened by the bluish twittering dawn, she stabs the broom more vigorously into the


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reeking alcove, delighting in the almost-thwack of the near-miss. Their dumb purple-and-

green wings clap miserably against the cool morning air. She stumbles back to bed for

another half-hour of fractured sleep. The absurd to-and-fro, like a lunatic game,

continues until the alarm wrenches her from dreaming once and for all. The disgruntledpigeons lay low throughout the morning rituals, peering beadily from the adjacent

balconies, spying on the coffee brewing and the page flicking and the tooth scrubbing. As

soon as the front door clicks closed, they flap noisily across the street and settle in for a

long day of shitting and dead-eyed strutting amidst the shady pot-plants.

This morning was different, though. Something was wrong. He could feel it through her

twitching eyes. She sat up. The alarm clock showed nine am. She never slept this late. He

rubbed her sleep-warm belly but she stilled his hand and said: shoosh a minute. An

unsettling silence seeped in from the balcony. But not quite silence -- he sat up beside her

and the two of them listened intently. The sunlight was straining at the blinds, peeking its

buttery fingers through the cracks in tremulous anticipation. Something was wrong.

Something is wrong, she said.

From the living room there came a peculiar rustling noise. A muffled clattering. A noise

like the shuffling of giant beanbags. They both gasped as the kitchen radio suddenly

prattled into life. The monotone-drone of some bromidic community radio presenter

began to drip through the bedroom wall, punctuated by pangs of smug intellectual

laughter.

Someones in the house, she said.

He planted his feet on the cold floor, less enthusiastically than he might have liked, and

felt an unexpected desire to shit. She pushed an index finger against her lips. Her eyes

were wild and urgent. He edged the wardrobe door open, not quite silently, and searched

for a weapon. If they lived in the united states they would have a handgun beside the bed,

he thought to himself, or at least a baseball bat. He quietly seized the most dangerousobject his blind hands could identify: a steel-capped boot.


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Im going to go check it out, he said.

No wait, she said.

She put her hand on his knee, and looked him in the eye. He looked back at her with a

winkling fear.

Ok, go, she said.

He stood up and crept ridiculously to the door, his blue and grey checked boxer shorts

slightly twisted from sleep. He edged open the bedroom door and peered into the

hallway. A familiar odour mingled with the stale banter of the radio. He glanced back at

her: she was sitting on the edge of the bed with her toes poised in fear. He raised the

boot and stealthed crouchingly into the hallway, sleek-limbed as a jaguar. He rounded the

corner into the kitchen, and she craned her neck to watch. He disappeared for a fraction

of a second, then came jelly-footing back like a startled chicken. She held her hands to

her trembling face and her eyes said: what is it? He couldnt reply. He beckoned her with

his forefinger, wizard-like but afraid. She stood up, and her pink zebra-print hipster briefs

clung to her buttocks with sweat.

Clutching each others arms, theycrept toward the kitchen. As they approached, the fowl

odour grew stronger. They rounded the corner of the hallway and found themselves

staring at a two metre tall pigeon, its vacant eyes like two enormous black insects, a twig

the size of a jalapeo plant perched dumbly in its beak. The pigeon stared back at them

without fear or malice. It cocked its large head. A sound like the purring of a

subterranean cat escaped from the pigeons gently throbbing breast. The resplendent oil-

slick breast feathers gleamed in the light. The pigeon shat, a shit the size of a fried egg.

The humans retreated to the bedroom.

This is my nightmare, she said.


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Her voice trembled and cracked like a transistor radio. He rubbed his facial hair and

breathed in deeply. The steel-capped boot trailed from his hand like a rabbit carcass. He

lifted it to his chest now and held it with both hands, caressing it absent-mindedly. Then,

with firmness in his stride, he returned to the hallway. He licked his dry lips, swalloweddry saliva. Why am I always so thirsty in the morning, he thought. Maybe its diabetes?

He glanced over at his wife.

Your phone?

In the kitchen.

He stroked his beard again, looked back at the bird. The bird hadnt moved.

Im going to kill it, he said without shifting his gaze.

She was about to protest, but instead she clapped her hands to her ears and pinched her

eyes shut gave a high-pitched internal whine.

imdreamingimdreamingimdreaming, she thought loudly.

But when she opened her eyes he was disappearing around the kitchen wall and there was

a clattering of wings and a noise like all the crockery in the world crashing down from

five stories. She rushed to the hallway and called his name. He said: Im alright. He was

crouched in the corner, the boot held before his face, and the bookcase full of porcelain

owls and faux-china plates was strewn across the kitchen floor like a shattered blue-and-

white toilet bowl. The bird was still flapping its powerful feathers in blind fright.

Get back over here, she said.

He shuffled back to the hallway feeling the heavy, dead-eyed gaze of the bird. He clasped

her hand in his and the two of them crouched in the corner watching the creature plungeits scaly feet into the porcelain debris. With a dense thudding of wings, a second pigeon


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emerged from the study. It was male, even larger than the first, its chest swollen with

shimmering green-and-violet feathers. The two birds gurgled at each other. The humans

retreated to the bedroom, defeated.

What do we do? she said.

He sighed and took her hand in his sweaty palm.

Lets wait and see, he said.


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Three Days Later

In the kitchen of their snug, beige-walled apartment, the pigeons watched the first pangs

of morning sunshine scatter down the windowpanes. Nestled chaotically between the

cool stainless steel of the dishwasher and the warm pine of the pantry, there crouched a

nest the size of a king size bed. The nest was constructed of sticks and cemented with

excrement. There were two pale blue eggs in the middle of the nest. The mother of the

eggs was curled comfortably nearby, cooing softly to herself, while her husband strutted

about the living room feeling horny.

Goddamn it Josephine, said the husband. Those revolting balls of meat out on the

balcony are shitting everywhere again.

Leave them, George, replied the wife in a honeyed tone. Theyre not doing any

harm.

George scoffed.

Shitting all over my balcony isnt doing any harm? he said, plumping his chest

feathers in irritation.

His wife was silent, her eyes dreary with maternity. The humans were lapping water out

of the potted palm.

Disgusting creatures, George mumbled to himself as the sunshine dripped

listlessly over the balcony. TomorrowIm putting some poison out.

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