I slow down. Cautiously. Stop. What is going on here? A young man with dark wavy hair, standing in the water.

  “You need help?”

  “Oh, thanks for stopping! Yeah, I found this young pigeon in the water. Maybe an injured wing. If you could just shortly give me a hand, please? If you could just shortly hold the bird while I’m putting my shoes back on.”   

  “Okay— uhm—  a pigeon?”

He comes closer, wet hands. A wee bird, grey, staring at me with round eyes.

  “I — I’ve never held a pigeon before. What do I have to do?” I drop the bike, I walk towards the situation. Hello bird. The young man steps out of the water, legs dripping. A bird is put in my hands. He takes my thumbs, closes them around the narrow grey back.

  “Just stay like that. I’ll take our little friend again in a sec. Just quickly putting my shoes back on.”

  “All right.” A pigeon in my hands! Is this a normal city pigeon? My boss calls them sky rats. Soft feathers. Almost weightless. Gentle warmth. “Is this a normal city pigeon?”

  “Yeah.”

Halfheartedly dries off his feet with his socks, but they remain quite wet.

  “How do you know it’s young?”

  “Well, first of all the grown ups are bigger. But you can tell by lots of things, really. For a start, see the bill? That still changes a lot. Young pigeons still have black eyes and grey legs and they still have this lumpy, longish looking bill.”

  “You know a lot about them.”

He shrugs. He has difficulties getting his wet feet back into the shoes.

  “I just like them, so I’ve just watched them all my life, really. You can tell a human kid from a human grown up, because you’ve watched them all your life. And I mean, really, pigeons just are around us everywhere, so if you keep your eyes open, you can easily learn a lot about them.” 

  “My boss calls them sky rats.”

  “Well, you’ll always have such people. Use the name of one species to insult another one. It’s a bit like insulting straight people by calling them gay, isn’t it. First of all: why is ‘rat’ or ‘gay’ a swear word? And secondly, you know — who are you to judge someone you don’t even know. I bet your boss has never gotten to know either a rat or a pigeon closer.”

  “No, I bet not.”

He finally has his shoes back on. Stuffs the socks into the pockets of a rucksack, swings the rucksack on his back and points at the little bird.

  “Many people think they are dirty, because they are grey. I mean, how stupid is that. It’s like racism: Disregarding someone for their natural colour. Grey is just the natural colour of their feathers. I mean, of course, in big cities the pigeons tend to be dirty. But that’s the dirty cities’ fault. That’s a human made thing. In places which don’t have a human made dirt problem, it’s different. Look at this pigeon here and at the other ones up there. Clean river. And look at how clean they look. Pigeons love bathing and taking showers, by the way. When the sun shines they like to sunbath and when it rains they love to come out to sit in it. No idea what happened to this little one. Just not so good at flying, yet, I suppose.”

  “Can that be? I mean, it’s a bird. Shouldn’t they find it easy to fly.”

A vigorous head shake.

  “No, no. Learning to fly is pretty difficult. Young birds generally are really vulnerable. Sadly, many also get killed in traffic. They just get run over. You know, many car drivers just see: ‘ah, there’s a bird on the street. That’ll fly off.’ But you know, kids aren’t safe in traffic. Human kids aren’t, and bird kids aren’t, either. They don’t know yet how to react. You know, you obviously wouldn’t expect a human toddler to be able to take coordinated action when a car comes speeding at them. Same here. They’re just children.” Silence. “There are also many non-fatal accidents. They always get lots of young birds in at the wildlife hospital.” 

Moving my thumbs across the little back. Impulsively lift my hands to my face and sniff. A gentle, warm smell.

He reaches for his bags and drapes them around his shoulders. Travel bags and camera equipment.

  “I was actually just on the way to the train station, that’s why I have all this stuff with me. But now I’ll go to the vet first.

  “Ah, to the vet?”

  “Yeah, you can always bring wild animals to the vet. Doesn’t cost anything.” 

  “Oh, that’s good.”

  “Yeah, but many people don’t know that. And you know, really many people also just walk past ill birds.”

  “They probably don’t see they’re ill.”

  “Yeah, it really would be good if people learned to look more closely. Okay, I can take the birdie kid again.”

He gently reaches into my hands, lifts the wee bird out. And looks me in the eye.

  “If you ever see birds who needs help: catch them by taking a light piece of cloth and throw it over them. A T-shirt will do! And bring them to the vet or to the wildlife hospital.”

  “Okay.” 

  “Thank you for your help.”

  “I - loved doing this.”

He smiles.

  “Good. Have a good day.”

  “And you.”

With mindful steps he leaves me, surrounded by dangling bags.

 

The palms of my hands. Still a bit warm. Wasn’t I just looking for help? Now I could help! This was great! I did something good. That was good! Close my hands. “Stay in there, good experience!” I’m bigger than before, with pigeon-warmth inside. Have to open my hands to pick the bike up, get back on. From under my bridge back into the sunshine. A sound behind me — cooing. Beautiful! This actually sounds beautiful! I never knew!

Okay, this was something special. Ooops, almost fell! Funny, I shook my head. Sometimes I do such funny things, all of a sudden say something or gesture, as if I was talking to someone. The theory we discussed back then in art class — that was arrogant. Not only rare things can be beautiful. Common things can be beautiful, too! Common things are not condemned to remain nice, they can be absolutely beautiful. Just because something is common doesn’t mean it’s replaceable or has no individuality. Pigeons are individuals. Everything that is alive, is being born, is an individual. I have to make sure I don’t forget that again.

I’ll start practicing straight away: dandelion. Here and there, now still rare, are the very first blow-balls, close to the wall that heats up, ready to carry wishes to the wind. Further away from the wall they still paint everything yellow. Not rare, but precious. Sunny. Alive. Liberating. A thousand times more beautiful than the photo shopped rose on my computer screen at work. Constrained. 

 

Stop. Hope no one is watching. But what the heck. I’ll do this now. Let go of the bike again, drop it again. I kneel down, sniff curiously. Dandelion — smells like summer. 

 

Liberated! Jump back onto the bike, pedal full force, satisfying. What will all this mean?

 

Pigeons, dandelions: You’ve been all around me, as long as I live, and I never knew you! Never knew your beauty, wasting my time calculating the spaces between stylised roses on plastic wrappers. I was too dazzled by the flashiness of things that are supposedly unique. It’s easy to spot the beauty in something rare, because it catches your attention. I had never learned to spot the beauty in something that had likenesses — so used to the sight, I didn’t pay any attention. But what was my expectation? Is the flashy loneliness of a freak the only beauty my eyes recognise? Just HOW blind did I become by not paying attention to what is constantly around us? If we always think: seen that a million times, then maybe we NEVER stop and look. And then we can’t even tell a child from a grown up, or someone who needs medical treatment from someone who doesn’t. But that way we’ll never learn to see that these, too, are individuals. Two pigeons are not identical. They are alive, they are individuals. They are not replaceable. All life is individual. From now on, I don’t ever want to forget that again. That every individual life is precious. And that is beautiful. Alive.