Maurice.

So the other day i rescued a pigeon. which is unusual for me, because id always convinced myself i hated pigeons. i dont know why, i think its popular to hate them and to mutter "rats of the air" under your breath whilst walking past them. almost like if you say it too loudly theyll kick off and fly into your mouth or something horrendous. stab you up i dunno anyway, i digress. i was watching the football and heard a rustling noise outside my window but passing it off for a gust of wind i continued watching the footie until i heard it again. louder this time. almost cocky loud because id ignored it the first time, like an attention seeking cough. so i got out of bed and looked out of my window onto the roof of the bay window under mine and sat there, in complete discomfort and looking really annoyed was the pigeon we have come to know and love as maurice. I really quickly went next door into my housemate lauras room and told her to come and look at the broken pigeon i had found. her automatic response was to grab a camera...says more about her than anything else. SICK. But broken pigeon fetishes aside she came into my room and looked at Maurice and (after a few sneaky snaps) agreed with me that i should call the rspca. so i did. The woman on the end of the phone was thick. lets not beat about the bush. she was thick as shit. It took about 10 minutes to describe why i was on top of a bay window to see this pigeon. im not sure how but she ended up making it sound like i had a seedy reason for being on top of a bay window, rather than it being that my room looks out onto it. a few awkward silences and "sure Mr England...."s later she told me to clap at the pigeon. "yeah. clap at it, see if it moves." so i did. and if ever a pigeon could look superior to a human, that was the time. nobody on the street below could see Maurice, due to the ledge of the roof so as far as theyre concerned, i'm hanging out of my third floor window clapping at what appears to be average masonry and a leaking gutter. The pigeon waddled over to the other side of the roof and did a shit. Literally, if it could talk it would be saying, "Yes i can move. Oh wait....i...i can also SHIT ON YOUR ROOF." After assuring the lady that the pigeon was very much mobile on its legs and other bodily functions she told me that someone would come round the next day to save him. in the meantime i should keep checking on him. so i did. every half hour or so i leant out the window and made that wierd tutting noise that you use to attract cats (attract is probably the wrong choice of word here. i dont want to attract cats, or any other animal. just to be clear) to see if he'd come and say hi. so now the passers by who previously thought i was an over enthusiastic building inspector now took me as a disapproving pervert who hung out of windows in his boxers tutting at them and their children as they innocently dandered past. all to no avail. Maurice didnt move. i left him for the night.

The next day i was woken by the RSPCA lady who was coming to rescue Maurice ringing me just checking that i still "had a pigeon on my bay window" (again making it sound really unnecessarily pervey, like some ineffective inuendo) so i checked if he was still there. and he was. so a few hours later she came with a net and rescued him and checked him over, apparently he'd broken his sternum by flying into my window. Thats something thats always confused me. loads of birds fly into windows every day but why was maurice trying to get into my room in the first place? did he want to watch the Brazil game? or did he see the en suite and think Luxury! before hitting what is seemingly a sheet of hard air and breaking his breast bone and spending the whole night being clapped and tutted at? hm? i dunno. but she took maurice and i feel empty. alone. bereft of company. That is the tale of Maurice. Amen. Maurice, we barely even knew ye.