“Wilhelm! Take the rear!”
“Mmph-a mmb-aph a-bmmmph.”
“What!? WILHELM. Take. The. Rear.”
The front bird was obviously struggling, double-flapping for every single wing flap of the bunch, but he held tight to his position.
“Mmb-AMPH mmph-a m-bumph APHMB!”
It was very rare that any Pigeon in a squadron would take the energy to squawk about anything at all when they were up that high. Conversation was completely uncalled for, even notably dangerous, when careening through the open sky at 60 mph. The only sounds they made were the steady crew-team rush of current through their plumed air oars, the occasional involuntary coos and squeaks of natural exertion, and that ever-so-rare call to a wayward flyer who didn’t catch the silent signal to change formation. The latter was in play here with dear Hank and poor Wilhelm.
Emergency procedure began. A tricky maneuver with hundreds of determined, code-following Pigeons barrelling due North in a business-as-usual manner. However, as the signal was sent through the cloud in a wave of feathers and winks, the leaders on the front line wasted no time in catching up with Wilhelm. Florence and Karl got there first, immediately registering the distress of their bug-eyed friend. He was choking. Flapping like mad, cookies caught mid-toss, he had lodged a heap of some unknown toxicity in his gullet and was now in danger of spewing it out his little nostrils. Three of the others made it to the front in time to catch the alarm on their compatriots’ faces and they immediately dropped the signal to the flock. These pigeons were extremely close-knit, and they never, ever, ever let one of the tribe go down in flames. They were calling an emergency landing.
This procedure occurs often enough in mid-air articulations of winged ones, but when it happens, you better believe they waste no time in its execution. Before a groundling could count to seven, the bird cloud had come wheeling down from near the absolute ceiling to a very convenient spread of leafless oaks next to a sprawling pig farm. The only complaint was the smell, but only the adolescent birds at the back of the flock had any attention to pay for that triviality. The hulk of the flock was consumed with concern for their obviously-ailing Lead Bird of the day.
Wilhelm was heaving and whirling atop a wide branch. Flo, Karl, and the others had guided him gently to the perch, using their instinctive proprioception to effectively air-crutch him one stair at a time down the stairway from heaven [1]. Indeed, his fame and fortitude would be remembered for generations, for many reasons beyond the very personal circumstances of his peril.
The community tried to save him, as one can imagine a Pigeon community might do. But absent a working knowledge of the Heimlich [2], they were without recourse. Wilhelm at last gracefully stepped backwards off the perch, pinning his wings to his sides in a very dignified posture for final flight, and spun to the ground where his body would rest as nourishment for the trees.
Shocked, saddened, and consumed with the familial melancholy following such a loss, the flock spent the night in exactly that spot, weathering the stink of the too-many-pigs-in-one-place farm all through the night. In the morning, after each Pigeon had paid its respects to the land of their fallen friend, the doctorly crone of the bunch, Lady Rémoulade, would report to those curious that the bulge in young Wilhelm’s throat had consisted of bile and what seemed to be toxic grains.
The buzz of hushed conversation was relentless as they took their flight homeward in the rising sun. Like gossipy math students behind a substitute teacher, they hissed and hinted and gasped all the way back to their home room.
Serious shit was afoot. Someone had to tell Livia.
-**
1. Empirically, just for statistics, it’s safe to say his sink speed was legendary for a bird in the process of choking to death.
2. Let alone any practical necessities like the anatomy and flexibility required for its implementation.