Eye contact with a pigeon
This experience was from a few weeks ago and happened spontaneously one day while walking to the shopping center. I can't remember which date it was but let's just put it as February 2020.
Writing it down had always been the plan but with something you really want to do as best as you could you tend to procrastinate. So here it is. A psuedo-100 word story because it just can't be kept in 100 words. I hoped to write 100 word stories like those in Reader's Digest when I was young and I still do. They will flow after this one.
~*~
It was a hot afternoon, sun scorching trees, grass, stone, and skin alike.
The mart was 10 mins away and the first 2 began to feel like drizzled desert in a wrinkling hotbed. When 2 became 5 a black oval caught my eyes near the railing of the carpark.
Instinctively, they turned to look at the perched creature, which surprisingly did the same.
Reddish rims with black glossy pupils stared back at me, and we stood, pupil with pupil, almost recognising some pre-felt meeting.
In what seemed like an eternal moment in halted time the connection was bizarre, unlike what I felt when looking at any creature of its kind.
No hostility, no fear, no hatred, only curiosity and faint recognition. I am sure the same neurones buzzed in my head as did in its mind as I studied its inquisitive calm and it studied mine.
I reached for my phone camera as habit enquired, then it heard a call, fluttered its wings, and was gone.
No thank you, ma'am, I am photo-shy.
The mart was 10 mins away and the first 2 began to feel like drizzled desert in a wrinkling hotbed. When 2 became 5 a black oval caught my eyes near the railing of the carpark.
Instinctively, they turned to look at the perched creature, which surprisingly did the same.
Reddish rims with black glossy pupils stared back at me, and we stood, pupil with pupil, almost recognising some pre-felt meeting.
In what seemed like an eternal moment in halted time the connection was bizarre, unlike what I felt when looking at any creature of its kind.
No hostility, no fear, no hatred, only curiosity and faint recognition. I am sure the same neurones buzzed in my head as did in its mind as I studied its inquisitive calm and it studied mine.
I reached for my phone camera as habit enquired, then it heard a call, fluttered its wings, and was gone.
No thank you, ma'am, I am photo-shy.
Who cared if my flat neighbours looked on at disbelief. It's just a pigeon! Some might say.
But that was the longest gaze I ever held with one, and it felt more comfortable
than some others
with my own kind.
But that was the longest gaze I ever held with one, and it felt more comfortable
than some others
with my own kind.
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