alive, you? or, sympathy for the pigeons
I got told off for feeding the pigeons during lockdown
admittedly I left seeds and peanuts everywhere on the balcony and it was a free-for-all between the squirrels and the pigeons, the ruralish ones and the city ones, and the magpies. Two people complained on the same day, a really really hot day, and I demanded, outraged, in person at the housing association office, to know what the rules were about feeding the birds, knowing that I was being a dick to the extent that even people in the flat were like ‘you need to stop leaving all this seed out’ and my mother on the phone was like ‘rats’. And when I talked to people about it, hoping they would side with me, they did not, so I understood that it was not cool to feed all the animals who would come. And the guy at the housing office said ‘whatever it takes to stop your neighbours complaining, that’s the rules’.
So I took the seed off the balcony, and now there is only a genteel peanut-holder which the great tits and the odd green parrot like. The birds, all of them, do not like the very expensive ceramic hanging water-dish I bought them, whether it is filled with water or seeds. fuck them. My sunflowers are dug into as if someone is looking for truffles.
I feel we have an obligation to the pigeons, midway between angels and emails. They are only here and f-ed up because we bred them to send messages and now they just stay here, jobless, free, devoid of communication. It would be like setting fire to a fax machine, there was this great art work someone put up the other day, a fax machine that they’d burned over and over. But I can’t find it now.
You can’t treat people like angels and then be like - well you deserved it, your wings were too pretty. There is a duty in admiration.