The Pigeon

I cross the bridge in a sea of people. On both sides we are flanked by fog and water. It must be like walking through Purgatory: there is nothing to trust but faith and the Way Forward. • There's an event I'll never forget. I was as unemotional as at my father's funeral, but the lack of ceremony made it more pungent for me. I stepped out of a tram and walked, it soon overtook me and blew wind in my face, probably. As it went away I noticed small red strokes on the track next to me, so small anyone would miss them, and they'd definitely be faded by nighttime, not even a memory. Further still, more streaks, but still very bright, bright red that is. And there it was, a pigeon lying on the cobblestones between the tracks, my tram had ended its last flight. Its eyes a mangled mess, a useless gnarled wing. Soft breathing. Each time softer. I could feel its life slipping away. I imagine how it'll be for me. Probably just like falling asleep: I want to stay up, but I'll just close my eyes, just for a few seconds... and it's all over, forever. The pigeon was now motionless, I presumed dead, when a slight breeze picked up, and the pigeon, remembering it was still alive, flapped a useless wing on reflex, clinging to something unobtainable, until he stopped moving completely. And there it was, no one to care to pronounce it clinically or legally dead. Now just another part of waste, ready to be assimilated back into the planet, when not five minutes ago it was an entity, a thing with some modicum of freedom. It could fly after all. • We don't usually get to see our loved ones slip away into lifelessness. A wake, or a funeral, or throwing ashes to the sea are just rituals performed on something already dead. At my grandfather's wake, my uncle and his sons were kissing his forehead, a memory. I touched his skin: it was dead cold, morguishly cold. That wasn't a person, that used to be a person, he was already gone. We live in a symbolic world, it's true, but to forget that symbols aren't strictly real is a tragedy. • Some days later I passed that place again, the cobblestones were clean, no sign of the pigeon.