The view from up here is spectacular. I can see so much of the city. Pavements, roads, little squares of green garden here and there, and the tips of the beech and sycamore trees waving in the breeze.
The apartment block that I wind myself around is higher than many of the others, and I’m grateful for the view. I can clearly see my brothers and sisters and cousins as they guard their own patches: drawing the rain from the rooftops and escorting it gently but firmly back towards the ground before it can make any trouble.
Our role is clear, to keep the floods at bay and to round off the buildings in a way that is pleasing to the eye. Some of my cousins are quite highly decorated. I’m a simple sort, just a gulley and a pipe, but that suits me fine.
What I live for is the rain. What you wouldn’t know, down there, is the sheer ecstasy of it. The pleasure of feeling sharp, cool water flow through you, cleansing you from the inside out. The thrill of the staccato patter of raindrops that makes you shudder with joy.
Most of the time we are silent, but when the raindrops come, we are free to talk.
A storm is a grand social event: sisters and brothers and cousins share news and gossip. Everyone’s keen to get a scoop, tapping out messages as fast as the rain can fall. Number 22 tells us what she heard last week, when voices rose to a yell in her house’s top bedroom. Ardingly Court shares the party that he saw unwinding messily across the flagstones of his building’s courtyard.
Sometimes the wind echoes through us, and we resonate in harmony.
Spring is my favourite time of year. There are usually plenty of showers, and best of all, it’s when the pigeons come. Mother and Father pigeon bring twigs and leaves to make their new home. I join them as they watch over their eggs, and feel a crackle of pride when the hatchlings first peep out of the shell. I’m sure my sisters and brothers and cousins get tired of listening me prattle on about them when it rains.
This April, something is different. Mother and Father pigeon build their nest. Inside, as ever, are two small white eggs. But there’s no rain. A dryer spring than usual. I am determined to remain stoic, and match my feelings to the dignified silence I am forced to maintain.
April turns to May. The eggs crack and the first of the ugly little hatchlings opens its beak to cry for grubs. There is still no rain. My plastic is getting dry, stretched and tense without the kiss of water to refresh me.
May turns to June, and the rain still does not come. The sun’s blaze is fierce, and I feel myself stiffen in the heat. Below me the beech and sycamore leaves start to wilt, and the tiny patches of green turn to a miserable scorched brown.
I don’t see the cat or the fox or the car that takes Mother and Father pigeon. All I know is that one morning they fly away from their hatchlings, who are only just beginning to hop clumsily outside the nest, and don’t return.
One night, a hot wind rolls a clotted ball of blood and bone and feathers into me. I know that somewhere within it are two pairs of little feet and two tiny beaks.
The ball stays there for a long time, lying still until a shift and writhe tells me that the maggots are beginning to have their way. The stench would make you gag. I long to cry out, but my parched pipes are condemned to silence. I can only hope that my cradling grip can provide some comfort.
Then there is the day when the great pain comes. Voices, a ladder, and a jab with something long and sharp. A terrible scraping, and I’m clear. Such scraps as are left of the ball of blood and bone and feathers rattle down to the ground below.
The bloody ball is gone, but it has left behind a sticky, faintly rancid residue. I continue my watch. The heat screams in time to the pulse of the sun’s rays and silence strains me to the very edges of my joins.
June turns to July. I fear I can take no more. Then, quite suddenly, I am granted a reprieve. At last – at last! – it begins to rain.
A fine storm splits the air in two, and I feel the blessed water run through me.
At last I can tell my brothers and sisters and cousins about it all: the trials of Mother and Father pigeon, the poor ball of blood and bone and feathers, and the torments of my vigil. They listen attentively, chattering in sympathy.
I rattle out a eulogy in time to the rhythm of the rain and, in the wail of the rising wind, we sing.
Katy Naylor lives by the sea, in a little town on the south coast of England. She has work published or forthcoming in places including Emerge Literary Journal, Expat Press, Ellipsis Zine and The Bear Creek Gazette. She is EIC of interactive arts space @voidspace_zine. You can find Katy on Twitter at @voidskrawl and at www.voidscrawl.co.uk.
Photo by Ace Gamer on Unsplash.
