The Pigeon

This may eventually be a play. For now, it's my attempt at writing a short story.

The Pigeon


1

For a man of twenty-seven, to have been married twice was an impressive feat. That the gentleman in question professed himself a poet may make this fact somewhat less surprising. That he inhabited the third floor of a crumbling Victorian house in an old and restless city was as much a mark of his species as of his eccentricity. This he knew full well. He had chosen to live by habit as much as cycling between periods of drugged creativity and drugged sleep could be said to constitute an active effort of the will. Within his sanctum, he kept a fridge stocked with French wine, a cabinet full of English brandy, a cupboard of Peruvian hemp and a Tupperware box of Afghan poppy, processed in Zurich. A chair by a cobweb encrusted window allowed him access to a typewriter almost as old as his lodgings and a laptop almost as broken as the view.

Four years ago, of a June, his first wife having recently quit her short stay in his room and his affections, he threw open that window with some mild belief that a headlong tumble would end his Earthly worries. Sucking the last good smoke out of his cigarette, he had attempted to throw the butt into the gutter below. Instead, glowing brightly in the twilit sky, it had fluttered to the floor. Leaning out to follow it's descent, he had marvelled briefly at the exhilaration of fear which overtook his tired and raddled body as he faced closer the precipice which had seemed so friendly but a moment, and a streak of energy, before. At the very second of his contemplation, one of the city's pigeons which, on any other evening, would have dashed it's beak on the window pane, entered the apartment on a surge of breeze.

This bird, flying frantically for a full minute around the room upset the debris of a creative but stagnant life and turned all the yellow papers and candlesticks and plates into a great tornado which, while it lived, made the opiates in his veins turn from sedative to glorious abandonment as on the first time he had indulged in them. Laughing aloud he had torn up his poorly worded note of farewell and, as promptly as was reasonable in his state, descended the stairs, entered the street and was soon married again.

His first wife had loved his poetry, his second wife loved him because he was a poet; a famous poet if one considers an occasional mention on The Culture Show and Newsnight Review fame. From a young age he had considered himself unprintable by principle; he had the same political as much as the same aesthetic ideals as Ezra Pound, largely unconcealed within his work. However, the entire world had been dry of even pretending novelty for almost half a century and the liberal media, while they would never like him, were content to report on him.


2

He had once told Henry Slater, as he picked at the three remaining strings of a guitar, that there were some pathetic fools who believed Bohemia had ever been alive. The two girls on either side of Slater had eyed him with interest and the dark-haired one enquired whether he was referring to "Us".

"What gave you that idea?" he had asked, and then giving up the acidic pose as he tuned the D-String he sighed and said "I'm not talking about you or about anyone I know in person in the Outer World. It's hardly my role to judge. Perhaps I'm talking about myself. Do you want a joint?" he asked. Slater nodded so he flicked one of his pre-rolleds across the room, selecting another for himself.

Admitting that he more or less lived on a mattress with the, more or less; company of these two, Slater's home was remarkably clean and tidy. It was a modern house, owned by the council but operated by what our hero privately called "Dead Poets Inc." It contained a selection of perfectly desirable relics; prints and paintings almost out of a catalogue of the audaciously trendy; this guitar, indeed seemed selected to resonate with an air of worldy nonchalance, so clearly unaffected as to practically belong in Camden. This was lucky, because it would clearly never resonate with anything more harmonious ever again.

The girl slouched against Slater's right side, the blonde, continued gazing. There was something he noticed about her, something vital and honest. She wore clothes which were barely more than pyjamas seemingly because, and he could barely credit this, she found them comfortable rather than them being quite the thing for the young and attractively dispossessed to wear. When she asked him with a voice coloured with music whether she might get a few tokes it seemed fleetingly possible that she may desire to smoke the pungent herb for enjoyment, rather than to give the appearance of contented and fashionable self destruction. Her eyes, sparkling, seemed the only bright and natural beings in an absurdly contrived universe, her belly where it showed was curved and smooth, her skin white.

Soon they were out on the street together, the curb staining his jeans and her pyjamas. He recited a half-remembered poem and she kissed him for it. For that night it seemed not a pose but an honest aspiration to be with this girl; to live in a ramshackle room in a grand old city and to show her some of the spires of his dreams. Even now, if he were willing to, he would tell you that he considers his feelings for her to be a mark of decency on his stained character. He didn't ask her to marry him because he loved her, he loved many people. He asked her because she turned his night into silvery fantasy, into a poem. And she seemed to exude at least the tiniest fraction of what, though he could barely bring himself to say the word, could have been innocence.



3

She left him when, in what could have been called mania, despair or submissive possession, he had called her a w***e. While her youth, as much as his, had been full of indiscretions, she had never once been unfaithful to him in body or soul. Most likely for a while she had adored him. Most certainly now she despised him. Disposed of, she disappeared, returning perhaps to the town which had been both their homes before their connection made the city so much more appealing.

He had felt an appropriate emptiness before; that which he felt now was so much hyperbole. If he had any feelings at all they were of satisfaction in beautifully destroying something beautiful. His poems of those days were of perfect apathy, the dust which shrouded his now solitary abode had settled also on his mind. His mind liked retreating into itself as much as his soul loathed it. If the pigeon changed everything it wasn't because he wanted it to but he did let it nonetheless.

Out in the streets of a wider world once more, he had wandered until he inevitably found himself in the caring arms of Mother Alcohol, but she would not be his only companion for this new wandering of his could not be halted by his own stumblings. Inexorably, almost as if guided he found himself the centre of attention in a literary party. It was staged in the ornate and over-all plum-coloured interior of a rather less dilapidated mansion than that which housed his own apartment. This building belonged to Henry Slater, literary critic for a considerable High-brow publication read largely by those who considered themselves above the use of the term High-brow. The work suited him. The irony suited the protagonist.

It was hard to avoid being drenched in the drool the inmates of this castle of timeless excess were prepared to waste on him. Even Slater was prepared to suggest that his own rise to success was partially a result of association which was utter rot. People like Henry Slater were born to rise to the top of the media's termite mound like a piece of toasted bread which, as it rises through a gloop of processed tomato, hadn't even the shame to be embarrassed at having been christened "crouton" by a motorway-side "chef". People like him didn't need the association of an erratic right-wing poet. It's arguable, however, that he enjoyed his company.

Assembled in this absurd gathering were many people who, even in a good mood, he would have generally been prepared to murder; indeed, if he were prepared to honestly compare any of them with his departed wife he would judge her an angel and they evil automata. However, they flattered him and his work, and being but a man, he thanked them. Among them were many women who, if HIV were the new consumption, looked very attractively diseased. Naturally, they were attempting to look something like Germaine Greer and something like how the middle class believe prostitutes to appear. The most daringly so of these was a girl he could scarcely believe out of school, sitting with her legs crossed and sipping expensive wine as if it were below her. If he were not poisoned with narcotic and intoxicated with regret he may have remembered affecting such a pose himself once and becoming fairly quickly nauseated with himself. He didn't however, nor did he at that moment consider her to have been playing a shy girl. He considered her charming.

He wondered whether here was one of a later yet generation than his own who may be capable of love. In such a condition one can entertain all kinds of marvellous fancies. If he was really as evil as he sometimes suspected himself of being then his first reaction would have been a desire to destroy this individual. His desire, however, was to talk to her.

The praises she lavished on him knew little to no bounds. She lusted over his poetry like a pervert over his pornography. She believed him to be the truest voice off � truth on the unfortunate planet. She had attended Slater's soir�es continuously on the offchance of meeting him. He said a few things which passed satisfactorily for wit.
From youth he had considered the phrase "making love" a slander on Love. In this case, at the very least, the lie was reciprocal. When they were done he told her his morals demanded that he ask her to marry him. She mistook his obstinacy for morality and his morality for something noble. She mistook poems for poetry and destruction for creation. She lasted as long as she could pretend he was real. He let her stay as long as she didn't interfere with his misery.



4

At twenty-seven, the pigeon that had stirred up his property disturbed also his dreams. When he thought of it's whispering wings, he thought of Her. So young he had been when She touched his life, so young She too. So young She remained in the hidden archetypes of his mind.

He had loved Her like the cold and aching world loved the breaking sunlight of a morning. He loved her like the breaking of the mountains and the spilling of the seas. He loved Her like God so loved the world.

All his broken staggerings had been for Her. Every word written, every nerve killed, every heart broken had been an attempt to bring back the perfection of Her presence. He had needed her and worshipped her and pledged himself to Her. All the institutions of the world could break if She loved him.

She was an angel, pure and perfect like crystal. She flew into his world on a beam of unbroken light and then was gone. Someone had fucked Her. Someone had stolen Her innocence and stolen his inspiration. He wasn't really a poet, not from that moment. He was a shadow, a ghost, reliving the life which, for a joyous while, was worth living.

She flew into his life and made everything different and then was gone. But still She was there in his heart, and he reprimanded himself for the hurt he had caused in the silent name of love for Her.

Seizing his ancient typewriter, he used it's bulk to smash the window.

He called out Her name to the open and expectant world.

Author's Note

Massacre my pretensions.