So: the pigeons were turning blue. Bit by bit, under the feathers, their dandruff came in sky blue, cerulean, and light turquoise. It was cause for concern among the leaders.
“What is the meaning of this?” asked Barb, a Barb Pigeon nervously bobble-heading back and forth on the shit-splattered wooden slab holding up the multicolored ceiling beams of Livia’s tower. [1]
“We’re done for,” squawked Harvey, an excitable red-crested Helmet. “They’ve poisoned us. We’re finally succumbing to this hateful country’s Winged Rat Ostracization Network of Greed!” [2]
“You made that up. Harvey. Get a handle, man. Jesus. Paranoia strikes deep.” Karl was perched up against the little nook where rafter meets ceiling, his head turned fully sideways so he could give Harvey the square dead-eye of unflappable derision. A sturdy racing Homer from Detroit and usually a rather light-hearted dude, Karl was clearly suffering from the bluing as much as the others; he just had more pride than to get all twitterpated in front of the flock.
“Maybe we’re spending too much time with the Chicago crowd, and we’re being adapted into more appropriate inner-city accessories. Chicago does have that effect on people, making the players props to its own story rather than the other way around.” Florence, as usual, spoke smoothly enough to get the attention of the whole wobbling, bobbling bunch. “But Harvey does have a point, you know. And it’s mission-specific… It may be an alarm signal asking our immediate attention.”
They turned to her, horror-movie slow, and stood stock still waiting for more information. Dramatic silence witnessed the ticking of an absent clock, the creaking of the wind through the flaking wood slats, a few scaly legs lifted in anticipation. Heads turned and cocked to the side. A lone drop of poo sounded its release to the ground.
Florence flapped twice to alight, settling gracefully on a leaning shovel handle in the middle of the dusty tower.
A bit about Flo: she was a notoriously favored and learned Homer; her parents were first generation Dragoon and English Carrier, so she prided herself in not only speed & accuracy, but culture & storykeeping. Being one of the more socially courageous hens in Greater Passeriform Squabland, she tended to catch newspaper articles with regularity as she ate from the hand of a favorite park-going lunatic. She headed up the Global Open-source Book-free Birdland Library such that the ancient story of Bird was well woven with the modern weft of Messenger, in the name of evolution [3]. She also, most importantly, had on-call, first-hand access to one Livia Columbia. Now, in the dim wooden turret, taking her time, looking from orange button eye to orange button eye, she continued as a kindergarten teacher addresses a captive audience of crosslegged reverence:
“You see, the humans have indeed been busy ‘fixing’ their problems lately. Instead of tracing the issues to where the real problems lie, they’ve been letting their distracted complaints and trembling rumfingers drive the whole damn train. As a result, they are spraying toxins in perfectly lovely meadows in efforts to kill any potential psychotropic plant forms; they are pouring curdled radioactive leftovers into nice, clean lakewater; they are growing corn that tastes like vanilla and bubblegum and swiss cheese.”
Captivating as it was, Karl needed her to get to the point. “You’re right. We know. But what’s it got to do with all this blue business?”
Flo swept her wings wide, raising her coo to a shrill pitch. “You remember the Great Vermin Poison of the last decade? Well, they seem to have upgraded the formula, and there’s a new poison spreading through normal grains undetected!”
There was a general outburst. Squawks and fluff filled the air. How was this possible? Who spiked the food supply? What does it look like? Wait, Livia wouldn’t let that happen! How did she not forsee this? Maybe she got in some kind of trouble. Maybe someone blackmailed her. Who let the cat out of the bag? Cat?!!?!
Questions like this don’t help forge understanding, but they must be expelled in some way before honest investigation can begin. In birdland, it often takes the form of a swoop through the sky, a figure-eight of birdbrain out-winging the thinking mind. [4] But they were inside, so it moved rather more like the rabble through a roused human crowd.
Expulsion was wise. Investigation was indeed necessary. Florence was so good at assuming authority, in times of stress it was common to forget that she might be mistaken. As many humanfolk know, blindly-followed leaders are most susceptible to delivering societies to the brink of insanity.
For the most part, the uppity English hen was right. The humans were doing a lot of unwise things. They had done all those things she named and much, much more. There was indeed a history of humans poisoning the gentle species with 4-aminopyridine, DRC-1339, booze-soaked grains, and much, much more [5]. There was indeed some foul play at fault in Wilhelm’s mysterious death. However, monocular vision was blinding the brood to one important fact: there was no bad guy spreading the Blue Plague.
Protein. The humans were obsessed with Protein. So much so, they had genetically modified normal grains to contain large doses of it. And, strangely enough, too much protein makes the pigeon go blue.
Florence, know-it-all as she was, did not know this at all.
So, the bird tower of Livia S. Colombia’s homestead was lit up with the roused rabble of some three hundred pissed-off, paranoid, panicky pigeons.
Not a good way to start the day. The old lady would surely earn her stripes for this one. A few in the bank for next season, perhaps. A little vacation in Fiji. A new cable-knit sweater from the sisters with the Alpaca herd up North. An extra few bottles of pinking for her handsome white shock of head-fluff.
As usual when the sun peeked over the first silvered treelimbs, Livia opened the heavy door to the tower, bucket of feed in one hand, bucket of water in the other. [6]
cheekee cheekee chip chip chip coo coo coooooo coo coooooup
Despite their obviously rankled state, many of the birds instinctively flew down to the grandmotherly form as she distributed the day’s rations in the wide troughs. When Livia stooped to freshen the water in their poop-frosted tins, only then did the winged population hear Florence’s hissed commands.
“Don’t eat the food, fools! What were we just talking about? Even Livia’s food can’t be trusted until we know more! You are going to be bluebirds by sundown, and is that what you want?!”
Slowly, surely, one by one, the squabbish little eyes blinked and the beaks raised up from the possibility of contamination. Feathers ruffled self-consciously, making an awkward little picture around the woman’s crouched form: staring birds, every third one or so fluffed up like the tiny grey pom-pom of a zombie punk cheer squad.
Livia, an instrument quite intricately tuned to the subtle notes of birdland, had picked up on the strange energetic charge in the flock before she’d even poured the contents of her coffee can. Her fierce love of the bird family was predicated upon great mutual respect, so she was quite aware when it was flagging.
She now took ample time finishing her task with the water, wiping her small knotty hands on her overalls, and standing her fully erect perch height of 4’11 [7]. She silently looked from eye to eye through the bird squadrons. When her lavender-silver eyes came to rest on the knotted beak of Florence herself, Livia raised an eyebrow, took a deep breath to the soles of her talonless feet, and bellowed out: “Allright, WHAT?!”
**
1. Affectionately referred to as the Coup Coop. Among the locals. Local Pigeons, that is.
2. WRONG.
3. More on GPS and GOBBL when we get to the downlow on the PLPL and the AEAE. Topsecret bird shit. Wait for it.
4. Reptilian brain: efficient.
5. If you’ve not looked into it recently… Terrible. Terrible. And: notably terrible. (That last one may be only joke-terrible. Art. Who can really tell these days?)
6. Before enlightenment: toss grains, carry water.
7. …which, worth noting, is about ten times the average height in the avian community .