The London Pigeon Wars

by Patrick Neate

  In the aftermath of consciousness, it is no surprise that the more cerebral geezs – if you can use such an adjective of a vanitarious species with acorns for brains – looked to nik knowledge for explanations of the here and now (which had, of course, before Trafalgar, been indistinguishable from the there and then and the where and when too). I have already said that ‘consciousness is a blessing in disguise’ but, the way I scope it, the niks know that better than anybirdy – or at least did so once upon a time – and that's the verity.

  Consciousness is as raw as the Thames at Tilbury in a November nighttime so no wonder they dress it up in all kinds of winter woollies. Let me illuminate it like this (and nuts to the niks because I can be a feisty fuckster given the right thermal to think upon): do you peep more about a peepnik from his thoughts or his threads (and I'm not just beaking about his logos but his logoi too: the stories that he tells about himself, that are told about him, that unravel in his every gesture and affectation) ? It's his threads, right? So cash savouries conceal themselves behind high walls in Hampstead as surely as streetnik desperadoes conceal themselves like genies in Bethnal Green bottles and poor blaxens slide past questions with more questions (like, ‘You think I give a shit?) while city slicksters slide past answers by sliding CDs into multichanger car stereos that provide other answers (like, ‘All you need is love, doobedoobedoo’).

  If memory is about fear and fear is about loss then most niks have figured out or had figured out for them by a collective unconscious (and isn't that a phrase that illuminates pinpointedly?) that the easiest solution to the hazards of now, then and even when is to forget and the very first thing to forget is how to think. And that is to say, therefore (as the loquacious coochie Gunnersbury might have it), that, in this city, the prognosis for peepniks is procrastination; to forget exactly what it was that made them niks in the first place. So what am I saying? I'm saying don't look down on me from your comfy cumulus when I tell you that us pigeons proved ourselves to be just the same. After all, we've got threads of our own. We're a feathered species so it's no wonder we're feather-brained.

  The verity is that it's the consciousness of consciousness that matters rather than consciousness itself. Look at it like this: four fat oldgeezs with breasts that brush the Tarmac of a park playground peck up peepnik crumbs and the like and beak on about god-knows-what. A febrile feline with a frenzy to feed is circling but these arrogant chubsters are saying things like, ‘Who does this puss-puss think he's going to catch? There's no cover in the concrete and we'll fly in a flash.’ So they let that Tom narrow their angles, pick a pigeon and poise to pounce. And when he does pounce and he catches his prey in his Tomcat chops, you can be sure (because this is what a bird-brained oldgeez is like) that the pigeon will squawk, ‘But I can fly! I can fly!’ And if the Tom has anything more about him than bloodlust, sun worship and a love for his own anus (which, let's face it, he doesn't), he'll reply through a mouthful of cartilage, joint and feather, ‘Not now you can't, geez. Not now you can't.’ And he'll have a point, too. If you're not going to fly when it matters, you may as well be flightless. Without consciousness of consciousness, you're barely conscious at all.

  I've already explained that my understanding of time is about as efficient as a squib's first mindmap of their locality. Nonetheless I remember the day, hour, minute… No! Instant when I was fully (and I mean consciously) conscious for the first and, so it seems, only time with pinpointed exactitude.

  I was soaring high above my home roost, middle of the day, scoping the bow-wows below with their sweet mistresses and keeping a beady eye out for any RPF renegades who might be straying my way. It was London beautiful with a cut-glass sky and breezes that tickled your feathers as you surfed them but nothing more exceptional than that.

  Suddenly, like an air shooter's crack (and haven't I heard a few of those in my time?), it happened. What it was I can't say but I can tell you how it felt. It felt like time accelerated and slowed, space expanded and shrank and sound was cacophonous and particular all at once. I could see everybirdy – and I mean everybirdy (peepnik and pigeon) – rushing past me, above me, below me, through me without a sideways, upwards, downwards or inside glance. The noise was like thunder; not a clap but a round of applause, a standing ovation, an ‘Encore! Encore!’ But even as they zipped by like so many fleas and flies so they moved in slowtion too and I could hear their every question: the whys and wheres, hows and whos and, most numerous of all, the ‘What the fucks’.

  Then (or, rather, when; or, rather, at exactly the same time) I caught my breath and before (or, rather, when; or, rather, as) I knew it, I'd sucked everywhere into my meagre pigeon breast and I felt like I was sure to choke. The dome of St Paul's, the Thames Flood Barrier, the British Museum, the London Eye, Battersea Power Station – all my favourite perches, all the places the peepniks seem so proud of were pressing against my lungs so I blew them out just as fast as I could. But as I blew so they accelerated away from me beyond the horizon until I was left squawking, ‘Come back, come back’, no better than a squib to his coochie-momma. Even as I heard my own call I scoped I was short of breath and I felt like I was drowning in the middle of the vast ocean of everywhere and I ducked my phyzog under my wing just to hear the reassuring pip-pip-pip of my pigeon heart.

  And then? And then it was over and I looked down and saw the same bow-wow below still chasing the same stick and the same sweet still fiddling with the straps on her babchick's perambulator.

  I was fuddled and flummoxed, believe you me, but there were a few things that I knew to have verity and they weren't facts so much as forebodings. First, I figured that choking on a squirm in your home roost is no different to drowning in a Thames tide. Make of that what you will. Second, I reckoned that being everywhere was no different to being nowhere and I was surprised to surmise that this probably applies to all the other ‘every's and ‘no's too. Third, I heard from a little bird who tweet-tweeted in my ear that the consciousness of consciousness is both power and weakness right there. If consciousness is a blessing in disguise then the consciousness thereof is a wolf in sheep's clothing; only this wolf has been dolled up like Dolly for so long that, these days, he'd rather run with the flock than acknowledge his wolfish nature. And this, whether you scope it as inadequately metaphorical or adequately oratorical, leads me to precisely the spot I intended.

  After this brief exhilaration of the consciousness of consciousness, what do you think I did next? Did I hunt it down again like the superlative rubbish bin that you occasionally observe in an obscure London square? Did I humbly contemplate the weakness and power therein or the implications of both thereof? No. I needed the fellowship of the flock so I called out to Acton29, a gossiping geez, who was perched in a nearby willow next to Ealing423, a dull hulkster who flew a whole lot faster than he thought. Let me tell you something: if Trafalgar provoked the consciousness of consciousness, there were still plenty of pigeons who could have learned a thing or two from a sparrow and Ealing423 was one. He had all the brains of a squirmy squirm that's been peckchopped in half so many times that it's basically – however Gunnersbury might try to aphorize – all anus.

  Acton29 was beaking all kinds of birdshit about a coochie I may have mentioned called Finchley440. Finchley440 was a harmless little number who gooned over Gunnersbury like a nik youngen with a crush – Gunnersbury coos, ‘Fly!’, she coos, ‘How high?’ You know the type. But Acton29 had got his tailfeathers in a tangle and no mistake.

  ‘Who does that mangy coochie think she is?’ he was squawking. ‘Following Gunnersbury around like a squib on its maiden flight? Track-stopped like an idle pigeon at a peepnik window? Anybirdy would think she was somebirdy the way that one carries on. But she's not. She's a mangy nobirdy, that's what. Finchley440? I mean, that's all you need to know right there. For starters, she's hardly a Surb at all. And apparently, after Finchley16 got squishsquashed by twenty tons of North Circular Nissan, that bird-brained coochie started calling herself 16
like nobirdy would notice.’

  Ealing423, who was, when you think about it, caught on the loose talon of an insult, squawked precisely zilch. And me? You think I set Acton29 as straight as the crow flies? You think I even flew above it and shut him up with the expression of my exhilarated experience? Then you haven't been following. No. I bathed in that birdshit as happy as a starling in a sandpit.

  After Trafalgar, a schism surely divided the London pigeons as a lightning crack divides the sky and two armies (Surb and RPF) slowly squared up to each other like two thugalicious hulksters haggling over who owns the pot to piss in. But just because us Surbs shared a loathing (and, perhaps more pertinently, the definition therein), that doesn't mean we were what you might term united any more than the peepnik haves and have-nots. In fact, it was no time before we splintered into cliques and coteries that bigged up and did down mainly on miniscularities of prestige and reputation that hadn't even existed a matter of weeks (or months) earlier. We were, you might say, spinning threads of our own because while birds of a feather may flock together that surely doesn't mean that they all see eye to eye.

  Of course, I'd like to tell you that I took a bird's-eye view of this pigeon pettiness but that wouldn't be the verity. And doesn't that leave me with one ding-dong of a dilemma? Even as I beak on, you see, I feel the words slipping away from me as though I bury each one with its utterance. I'm desperate to get this out but I'm struggling to remember why, let alone hit upon how. I hazard it's partly for all pigeons but partly just to coo, ‘I am. And I am me,’ before it's too late and the particularities of language have lapsed once again to nothing more meaningful than ‘cluck, cluck, cluck’ and ‘squawk, squawk, squawk’.

  The way I illuminate it, the veritable consciousness of consciousness may be an enlightened and benighted state but that's not to say there's no sliding scale which ultimately descends to the dull selfishness of instinct. I see it in us poor pigeons, of course, and I see it in the peepniks too: one moment you're a deity who is both at one with and looking down on London all at once, the next you're no more than a pick ‘n’ mix of genes that are flapping to fight their way out of your bag of bones. And I'm no deity; not any more. I'm but a spit from a dumb animal; another gormless geez for whom ‘better’ and ‘worse’ are just binary finery crammed into my chromosomes.

  Once upon a time (weeks or months ago), I'd have put this fate of affairs down to the unilluminable nik I named Mishap; because I'm still sure he's at the root of all this as surely as I don't know why or how. But now I begin to wonder whether the consciousness of consciousness is something like a state of grace which, once achieved, will ineffably degrade and this fact is as defiant and definitive as the failings of our flesh and the rhythm of our heart (personal, peepnik and pigeon) that hears its final drum roll even as the egg cracks or the umbilicus snaps. Is it, therefore, our capacity that defines us or our footling failure to fulfill it? The niks know nut all, trapped as they are on terra firma, and they couldn't envisage the verity even if they so chose. But us birds can fly as high as we want (or near enough) and there's one thing we know with certainty and its implications for us are, as you can imagine if you engage your mindeye, far more pertinent and pernicious than for the peepniks. What we know is this: what goes up must come down. As simple as that.

  That very same nighttime I winged it to Tooting Common. To be veritably veritas, I wanted to be close to the Remnant of Content, our idol of what's been lost (and, if you think about it, are idols ever else?). If that illuminates something for you, feel free to fly with it.

  I circled a couple of circles with an eye out for RPF renegades (because we didn't want their spotters to spotlight our stash) and then settled on the branch next to the hole that held our fragment of the unilluminable stuff (a hole that some gullible geezs had already christened ‘the shrine’). It was a moody night; the kind when shooting stars signify solipsistic portents and every breeze whispers the same. My feathers were ashivering and no mistake.

  ‘Ravenscourt?’ Gunnersbury was sitting on the lip of the hole. Her phyzog was all surprise and I hazard mine was the same. She looked like I'd just dragged her out of Nod without a by-your-leave and there was something about her manner, a vulnerability to be veritas, that made her seem, at least to my amber bead, even more perfectly peachy (like that's possible).

  ‘I was just checking out the lies of the land,’ I cooed, soft like an oldgeez to his favourite squib. ‘I wanted to make sure it was safe. The…’ For some reason I was struggling to strike the right word. ‘The shrine.’

  Gunnersbury made a noise that seemed to gurgle right out of her gizzard, somewhere near a laugh, I hazard, and her phyzog flicked towards me infused with some semblance of something. ‘You too?’ she warbled. And I didn't know what to make of that.

  An observation: peepniks are putty-featured creatures whose phyzogs are chock-full of expression. For example, when a savoury says, ‘I love you’, or some other sentimental schmaltz, scope his eyes because if he doesn't blink you can bet he's a fibbing fraud. Or when a sweet says, ‘No, I haven't just fucked your best friend’ (or, more likely, words that add up to the same), scope the twitch of her lips to know the verity: none and she's innocent and angry; plenty and she's unsullied and upset. But a little twitch followed by a conscious stiffening? You may as well ride your cock horse all the way to King's Cross for a poke of paid pathos. You didn't know that? Like I said, pigeons watch peepniks for fun and probably know nik nuances better than the niks themselves. Whatever. The point is that the appearance of us birds is capable of no such subtlety so if a pigeon with a penchant for the palimpsest (peachy coochie or not) is suffering the delusions of allusion, you'd best ask for some straight squawking.

  So I said to Gunnersbury, ‘What's that supposed to mean?’ And I figure she felt the frankness of my call because she looked away and ducked her head, coquettish like the heroine of a motion flixture.

  Then she started beaking. ‘Ravenscourt,’ she began. ‘You're a faithful geez, aren't you? I mean, when the tick tocks you're not going to flee the flock. A faithful Surb geez through and through, that's you.’

  ‘Faithful to what?’ I clucked dubiously. To be veritas, I figured she'd found a god complex, which is easier than you might think for us birds, who can, after all, shit on most things from a great height.

  ‘Exactly. To what? That's the nub of it, the point of the pin, all right. To what?’ She extended her wings and flapped them a couple of times. It was an idle movement, like she was vanitariously scoping her own span. ‘You were there, Ravenscourt. You scoped the scrimmage, that starling geez Regent and the frenzy in my own feathers. You witnessed me fight over the Remnant of Content and you know this is no shrine but mere symbol at best. You're no moonatic; you figure what's going on even if you can't illuminate it. You figure it was just a pebble in a pool and the splish-splosh turns to ripples and even they iron themselves out in time. You figure all those bird-brained fucksters only put me on the bird-table, in the spotlight, because they don't know what else to do. But scope it like this: somebirdy's got to make sense of this even if there's no sense to be made, you accord?’

  ‘I scope that you've started to credit your own dawn chorus.’

  ‘Yeah? You reckon? So what you doing in this neck of the woods that's a fair old flight from your home roost?’

  That got me. ‘I don't know and that's the verity,’ I cooed, soft and low. ‘What's your excuse?’

  Gunnersbury beaded me then and her beads were glinting: ‘I'm on the nighttime watch. Guarding our Remnant of Content. Guarding our shrine. Because I can't get a geez to do a gig I won't do myself, can I? And tomorrow I'm leading a bin raid right into the heart of the Concrete jungle. The way I scope it, us Surbs deserve all the nik niblets and best bits of the city bins, Ravenscourt, and we'll show Regent and his RPF rabble that they can't scare us off with spotters squawking above the bridges. You accord? Can you gulp that through your gizzard, geez? Because I want you at my right wi
ng.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because you're a faithful Surb geez, my friend.’

  ‘But why are you leading a bin raid?’

  ‘Because I'm a leader and London is ours to win.’

  ‘Right you are,’ I murmured. ‘Right you are.’

  After that we were silent like the city.

  To be as blunt as a woodpecker's beak after a month in the Concrete, I don't know how you've got me pigeonholed. Maybe you scope me as a gullible geez or maybe a well-intentioned do-gooder who thinks too much and knows too little. Then again perhaps you just think, ‘He's a rat with wings. Why should I give a flying fuck?’ Up to you. Because the thinking tricks of a few mixed-up niks are like water off this duck's back. But however you've got me figured, there's one verity I come back to with the regularity of a homing pigeon and you're just going to have to take it on trust.

  Everybirdy wants to follow. There; I've said it. Everybirdy wants to follow, whether physically or metaphysically, and when the carcass has been stripped it all comes down to faith. In an ideal world, you'd want to follow somebirdy or something that you knew inside out and upside down and back to front too. In an ideal world, you'd want to know – and, more than that, understand – history, personality, cause and suchlike. But this is not an ideal world so, as fly comes to fall, you just want to follow. So now you know.

  You can love that or you can leave it but it won't stop it being veritas. And I'm one geez who does give a flying fuck. And prior to passing pedantic judgement you might want to verbalize this verity too: I give a flying fuck and, more to the point, I can.