He Had No Agenda

January fourteenth. A pigeon landed on my windowsill this morning and did not leave for eleven minutes. I know it was eleven because I was watching the clock on the stove, not because I was timing him, but because I was in that particular state of tired where you stare at numbers without reading them, and eventually the numbers become information by accident.

He stood there in the grey light, completely still, then completely twitchy, then completely still again, and did not once look at me through the glass. The cord was to his left. Gerald's newest leaf was below him on the shelf. The letterpress card, the photographs, Carol's small object: all of it arranged as it always is, and him just added to the top of it like he belonged there. I had my coffee. He had the whole city to go to and was choosing, actively and repeatedly, not to go.

I took three photographs. The first one was for the record. The second was better, just him, close, the cord blurred in front of the glass, and I knew it was better the way I always know, before I've decided anything. The third was the one I set a timer for, because I wanted to see what we looked like from across the room: me in profile, him in profile, two separate creatures both just standing at the same window on a Sunday morning in January with nowhere immediately pressing to be. That one I didn't post. I'm posting it now.

Eleven minutes. He had places to be and chose not to go to them.

He left without announcement. I finished my coffee. The windowsill went back to being what it usually is, the arrangement, the light, Gerald's vine. I wrote one line in the draft folder about it and then didn't touch it for a day. The lag again, short this time.

Two beings. One window. No plan.