The Pigeon Had Plans

May first. The pigeon arrived before I did, which seems important to establish.

I had walked over to Simone's in the afternoon, no particular reason, just that kind of first-of-May Friday where the air has finally stopped arguing about whether it's still April. I knocked, she opened the door already mid-sentence: 'Okay, you need to see this.' The pigeon was on the sill. Not moving. Not eating anything. Not displaying any recognizable pigeon agenda. Just standing there, outside the glass, with the particular stillness of an animal that has made a decision and is at peace with it.

Simone narrated him for approximately twenty minutes. I am not exaggerating. She assigned him a name, she will tell you the name was provisional; I will tell you she said it with commitment, and a general demeanor (composed, she said, and this seemed right). We took a selfie because there was nothing else to do.

Simone performing a wildlife documentary in real time, unscripted

We waited. He waited.

The pigeon outlasted us. We moved to the floor. He did not.

Eventually we sat down on the floor below the window with our backs against the wall, still watching the sill above us, and talked about nothing in particular while the pigeon continued to exist on the other side of the glass at whatever pace he had chosen.

He left eventually. I don't know exactly when; I had stopped watching. But for a while on a very ordinary Friday in a very quiet spring, two people sat on a floor and let a pigeon set the schedule, and that turned out to be the right thing to do with the afternoon.