067: The Carnivorous Pigeons

Henry told the story with a rush of arms and fingers under an animated and electric sky, soon to drop water on us. Later we’d hear about trees falling, crushings in the streets, but that’s only sidebar.

“I found him in a diner, where she said he would be,” Henry informed us. “I went in and hid my face with a paper. I drank some coffee and watched him. He also had coffee, and as she’d said, he raised the cup with just two fingers. He watched out the window, as if knowing he was being followed.

“But then something amazing happened. When he stood to leave he appeared of smaller proportion than when I first encountered him. It was a phenomenon I’d never experienced.”

“What do you mean he was of smaller proportion?” Lucy asked.

“Simple,” Henry said. “At the table he was a man somewhat more than six feet five, as she’d described him, a massive and imposing man. She said: look for a man about six foot five. He’ll have a narrow beard, eyes like a squirrel’s, and very large hands, so large he’ll use only two fingers for a coffee cup. But, as I said, when he stood up, he had became a man of about 5 foot seven or so. He took a last sip of his coffee and now he held the cup in his palm.”

“That’s pretty amazing,” Lucy said. She looked at me. I shrugged.

Henry went on. “Following procedure, I departed the diner before he did. I waited outside. I smoked a cigarette to avoid suspicion. He went down 3rd and I followed him keeping some yards back. He turned down 6th and when I turned down 6th I saw a man who had shrunk to the size of a child. But it was him. Oh, yes, him, little more than three feet high with his beard and his rain coat. These items had reduced in size also, which I found doubly amazing.”

“Which I find unbelievable,” Lucy said.

“As did I, believe me, but there he was, child-sized, skipping down 6th, growing smaller still like a man becoming more distant as you watch him on a lin toward the horizon. Little more than the size of turkey, he turned the corner of 24th. I had to hurry. As you can guess, I was growing distressed as the target was outsmarting me and might even have escaped. I hurried. I whipped around the corner on Wall street, which is narrow and these days really used only by taxis. I whipped around the corner.”

It was at this point that Henry slowed down and took a sip of tea. Lucy and I watched him. He drank slowly. Maybe he was listening for thunder.

“Well?” Lucy said, “What happened?”

Henry said, “It was amazing. I found a small set of clothes on the sidewalk, crumpled, wrinkled in place as though simply stepped out of or as they would look if a human body immediately shrunk to nothing within the folds. But what was even more amazing was the pigeons, Lucy, all the pigeons.”

Lucy said, “Pigeons?”

“Yes, pigeons,” Henry said. “When I turned the corner, I saw the clothes, the only remaining evidence of his existence on the earth, and, yes, numerous pigeons, which I found pecking at his linens and the flaxen remainder of a beard.”

“Pigeons as in bird pigeons?” Lucy said.

Henry said, “As feathery as they come, yes. I learned later that this affliction is more common than you’d guess, that about thirty percent of our population is slowly being eaten to nothing by carnivorous pigeons.”

Post a Comment

Your email is never shared. Required fields are marked *

*
*