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Canary in the Coal Mine


There is a dead pigeon on my porch. The herb potter, to be exact. It’s just kind of lying there, head cocked at an odd angle. I don’t want to look out the window again because of the way the stupid thing landed. Bounced off the window into my herbs, and now it’s stuck, body tangled in thyme, head draped over the ceramic lip, red eyes staring at me upside-down from the pot. There’s even a print of the asshole on my window. It’s a dirty, white outline of a pigeon. Perfect outline. It reminds me of those old cartoons when Wile E. Coyote would crash into a road and make a perfect outline of himself. And God help me, I’d think this was hilarious if the pigeon’s fucking eyes would stop staring at me.

It’s probably infested with mites or something. I know I should move it before it ruins my thyme, but how do you move a dead pigeon? Call animal control? Just use gloves or a broomstick?

I try to look it up on my phone now. Some alerts have been popping up about the latest outbreak. You know the one. The one they’ve been talking about on the news for months, ever since the first cases in Africa. I’ve been subscribed to just about every newsfeed I could find, ever since the virus came to this country. You have to be when you live in the city. Just one person could really screw things up for the rest of us, you know? But I’ve got no intention of leaving the apartment today, so I don’t really feel all that guilty about missing one day of news. I dismiss the alerts and go back to looking up information on how to solve the problem at hand.

BANG!

I look up. A second white outline has joined the first. I sigh and press my face against the window to find another dead pigeon. This one missed the pot and landed on the cement floor of the porch. The poor bastard twitches, trying to pick up its twisted head.

BANG!

A third pigeon slams head-on into the window and peels off onto the second. As I watch the two birds tangle up in each other, I let loose a breath I didn’t realize I was holding. I can still feel my heart pounding in my chest, and it takes a few more breaths before I can calm down. It’s just a pigeon. Just a common pigeon.

BANG!

BANG!

BANG!

Three more pigeons follow in quick succession, and soon, my tiny balcony is covered in writhing, dying birds. They claw desperately at each other in their death throes, each scrambling to lift unnaturally tilted heads.

Now it’s not so funny to look at those perfect, white outlines.

I wait for a seventh smack, but there’s only silence. No bird. I think they might be confused by the reflection. This time of day, the sun glares off the side of the building, and ever since the first outbreak, things have gotten weird. Fewer birds, for one. The army was supposed to have shot them all down after the outbreak came to the States, what with what happened to Philadelphia and all.

That’s why I’m not opening this window. Get someone else to take care of the birds. Maybe animal control.

BANG!

BANG BANG BANG!

I stare at the window.

A pigeon is throwing itself against the glass over and over and over again. A sprig of thyme is draped around its broken neck like a noose.

BANG BANG BANG!

One of the pigeons from the floor of the porch joins it.

BANG BANG BANG!

Another joins them. Then another. Then all of them in one big flock of bent-neck pigeons, throwing themselves against my window.

My glass window.

I step back. My phone slips from my fingers and crashes into the tile floor. As I scramble to pick it up, I pray that the pane holds, that the birds fall apart, that something—anything—happens before they’re able to break that—

CRASH!

—
Credits to: intern-tallulah

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