Handwritten Pigeon

~ Fiction ~

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Assembling old notes, many of which made no sense - and of those that did, many were

disappointing reads - I created a flightless pigeon. Grey with ink and graphite, feathers like paper, it was both gaudy and formless, a ridiculous statue of itself - something to venerate when one has forgotten that which deserves veneration.

Although I knew it was flightless, I tried to set the pigeon free. I climbed high rises and tower blocks, but it only ever plummeted like a stone from whichever window I threw it. It crashed to the pavement and passersby screamed in horror, so realistic was the gruesome sound.

I would quickly shout down, "Don't worry, it is only made of ideas! I can put it back together."

Hearing this, they look closer at the fallen body and see it to be made of scribbled words and crumbled pages. Of course, some sentences are lying there, twisted and broken, letters spilling out and staining the concrete.

If it is raining, which it often is, the ink will run and smudge in places. When a letter slides off the page, pulled by the current into the drain, I hope that it finds a new home, a better one.

Whenever a new sign goes up in my neighbourhood - an advert for a solicitors, a missing pet poster, a For Sale sign - I wonder if somehow one of my letters made it in there.

When the pigeons gets smudged, I like to think that it adds character, even if the substantial change is a redaction, an absence. They say less is more in any case - those lost words turning to black puddles.