John Biscello

When the bird hit me in the side of head, I had no idea what had happened. It felt like someone had blindsided me with a loaded handbag. I clutched at air and went down immediately. I didn’t feel any pain but was aware of a crackling wetness on the side of my head and touched my fingers to the spot then checked my fingers. Blood. I stayed down on the sidewalk, fuzzy, and stilled by shock. It was as if shock were an electric blanket that covered me from head to toe: not that I couldn’t move, but I didn’t want to. After a brief spell, I looked around to see if I could find who or what had attacked me. A little more than an arm’s length to my left, I saw the culprit: a pigeon. I had always despised pigeons, for no good reason, so the fact that it was a pigeon that had struck me in the head somehow made perfect sense. The pigeon was lying on its side, slowly rotating, like a record being played at super-slow-speed. The wing that was visible was misaligned, seemingly disjointed. The pigeon was cooing a low muted coo, tremulous and half-stuck in its throat. I saw the shoes and heels and pants and skirts of the people on the sidewalk, passing by, but no one stopped. There I was, down on the sidewalk, bleeding from the side of my head, and a grounded pigeon was rotating in what looked like its death-throes, and everyone maintained their unbroken pace, either willfully or unconsciously blind. I took off my sport-coat and pressed the sleeve against the side of my head to staunch the flow of blood. No pain, but an alarming amount of blood. Staying down, I moved closer to the pigeon. I was mesmerized by the iridescent patterns beading its squat neck. A dazzling necklace flashing tiny gems of sea-green, lavender, indigo, turquoise. Visually I scaled its neck to its eye, the eye of a dinosaur, cold and ancient. Its pencil-thin feet, tri-pronged, reminded me of the base in which you planted your Christmas tree. The pigeon’s cooing now sounded like phlegmatic purring, which grew thicker, more syrupy and gargled, and then there was no more sound. No more movement. The pigeon was dead. I looked up. No one stopped, no one noticed, no one cared. Either that or, I, along with the now-dead pigeon, had ceased to exist in the visible sense. Which, of course, was something to consider. After all, what are the odds of a pigeon flying, or crash-landing, into the side of someone’s head? Things that don’t happen sometimes do happen and you’re left wondering what, if anything, to make of it. What came to mind was my friend Anthony’s story about the birds he saw flying, I don’t remember what kind of birds he said they were, and how one of the birds plunged from the sky and slammed onto the pavement. All of the other birds, except for one, continued their flight. The bird that stayed behind flew down to the ground and stationed itself next to the fallen bird, that was still alive yet obviously couldn’t fly. Anthony’s initial poetic take was—the two birds were lovers, or mates, and the healthy one would not leave behind the wounded one. Anthony was touched, he felt he was witnessing something pure and beautiful. That is, until he saw the healthy one mount the wounded one, and begin violently humping it. After a half-minute of humping, the healthy bird flew away and left behind the wounded one, who, Anthoy imagined, died shortly thereafter. Perhaps these birds had been lovers or mates, perhaps not, but one thing was fairly certain to Anthony: the healthy one had wanted to fuck the wounded one, maybe for the first or last time, before rejoining the flock. That bird story had always stayed with me, and now I had my own bird story to tell, thick with its own mystery and drama: Why had this pigeon crashed into me? For the rest of my life I could only speculate, same as those to whom I told the story could only speculate. After some time, I rose to my feet. My legs were shaky and there was a lightness in my chest, a hollowed-out feeling. I pressed the sport-coat hard against the side of my head, sponging up the blood that kept coming. I looked around and saw people everywhere, but none of them saw me. I thought I should go and see a doctor. I started to walk and when I got halfway down the block, I turned and saw the pigeon on the sidewalk: a dark lifeless lump amidst a bustling stream of people. It seemed a useless comma in a run-on sentence. I thought about going back and taking one of the pigeon’s feathers, to mark the occasion I suppose, then remembered that the feathers of birds could carry diseases. I didn’t know if that was true or a myth, but I had already been hit in the side of the head by the bird and didn’t want to risk contracting whatever disease it may have been carrying. When I crossed the street I realized that, either I had returned to my previous existence, or had never left it at all, because a taxicab stopped short in front of me, its bumper nearly grazing my hip, and the driver slammed down on the horn, a sustained angry chord, and he shouted—Get the fuck out of the way, moron! I was back to life as I knew it.