Pigeon

Coming out of the T station near Congery, all was right with the world. The sun was shining, I'd had a lovely lunch with fiddledragon and a productive day at work; I had been contemplating projects for my sewing machine, and had been reading Barthes on the subway.

I saw a pigeon in the little park next door, and felt, if possible, happier. (I really like pigeons; their reputation as city rats is, to my mind, undeserved; I think of them as good omens, as comforts.)

Someone passed within two feet of the pigeon and it didn't move.
That's strange, even for a city bird. They at least usually look at you, with a slightly annoyed air, before sauntering out of the way.

Then I noticed it was sitting down.
In the middle of a noisy park, during rush hour.
This is unusual; pigeons don't sit unless they're comfy. And then they tuck their feet up under them, and occasionally groom themselves with soft purling noises before sticking their head under their wing and taking a nap.

I walked over to the pigeon.

It opened its eyes. "Not good," I thought. Birds rarely sleep during the day unless they're old, or ill; it's a sign of weakness and draws predators.

This pigeon's feet were kind of shunted out to the side, laying over the top of each other. I've never seen that before.

I squatted and looked at the pigeon. It blinked sleepily and made no effort to move, though it did breathe a little faster, worried.

I went home and used Google and called the local animal rehabilitation people. I was really glad that they didn't laugh me off the phone when I said it was a pigeon. However, they didn't seem to know the street address of the T station; I looked it up as best I could on the website and gave them my phone number.

They said they'd send someone over and call me if they couldn't find it; thankfully, I am only a short distance away and could be there within 10 minutes to point it out to them should they need me.

I hope it's going to be ok, but I did the best I could. And if it does die, at least it'll probably die quickly, and not be toyed with by some cat, or accidentally stepped/skateboarded on.

--
Ye gods. I'd planned to do some penultimate-to-submission-date-writing today, but I spent the entire day folding letters and stuffing envelopes and my right wrist is planning a mutiny. More tomorrow...

Perhaps I'll try it with a pen after an hour or so; I do want to get this story in.