My sophomore year of college, I became well acquainted with the two dead pigeons that inhibited my path to class. I cannot remember exactly when the nefarious pair appeared, but from the beginning of that scorching September to the first snow after Thanksgiving, I spent every day thinking about the birds. Back then, I lived right by a parking lot, trapped between a baseball field and four residential buildings housing fresh faced students. To defend itself from the furious attacks of flying baseballs, the entire lot was covered by a mesh tarp.
By some twist of fate, pigeon #1 found itself taking its final resting place on top of that net, poetically suspended, spending its days of decay above ground. A much more gruesome death was met by bird #2 when it collapsed somewhere on the asphalt and was ultimately flattened by merciless rubber tires.
For three months, I watched the birds fade away. The mess of blood, bone, and feather on the ground; and the caught avian, perfectly preserved above. Most days, I averted my eyes when passing the poor, trampled pigeon, holding back little waves of nausea as I trekked to my room. Our feathered friend, melting into the cement, the dark red stains fading until there was nothing left of them. The bird in the net, slowly wasting away, its bones protruding and flesh rotting under the sun. I reigned in morbid curiosity, wanting to find out what stage of decomposition they were in. By spring, the deceased had all but disappeared.
The parking lot was a summertime avian graveyard, engaging in some perverse yearly ritual with dying pigeons. I talked to friends who had resided there years before and they all spoke of the strange dead birds. Every year, those who ventured through the parking lot met perished winged beasts. Sometimes a lone pigeon would rot there, but oftentimes two or three would join in solidarity. I thought about them, how cruel and arbitrary it was to fall from the sky and be sneered at by passing teenagers, disgusted by your remains.
As the year flew by, the birds would pop into my mind on unrelated occasions. On Halloween I saw girls dressed in leopard print, wearing mouse ears, or cat whiskers, stumbling home drunk in the dark night. No one was dressed up as a pigeon. By March, a leather-clad baseball replaced the net-bound bird, and I was sure they were truly forgotten.
I have not revisited that parking lot in a long time. The walk to my apartment involves new things, real things. Every day I can count on seeing ladies sitting on plastic chairs, inviting people to free bible study, or a man poorly playing the guitar, yelling the lyrics at passersby, or construction that blocks entire streets, or the long-abandoned bike with a flat tire. There is always too much going on, too many things I forget the moment my eyes move on, but I remember the dead birds.
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Art by Lara Schaberg
