Well That Was Brief

The miracle that is nature has been performing for me on my balcony like a second rate busker trying to gather meth money.  Over the past couple of weeks it has shown me the highs, the lows, the joys and the anguish that comprise the cycle of life through the medium of incontinent sky rats.

This story actually starts several years ago when I possessed a modestly sized stereo which came in a slightly larger stereo cabinet whose fundamental cheap and tackiness was offset by a black faux wood grain finish (I know, pretty classy shit right?).  The stereo went the way of all electrical equipment from the 1980, laughed into humiliated retirement by more recent innovations, but the cabinet hung around until I needed the space it currently occupied.  I placed it out on the balcony while I decided what to do with it.  OK, that's a lie.  I placed it out on the balcony in the hopes it would biodegrade before I had to go to the effort of carrying it downstairs and throwing it away.  So far it has proved annoyingly durable for something so flimsy.

And there the story should have finished.  Indeed there the story would have finished but for a sojourn to the chillier parts of the New World.  As you may be vaguely aware I recently took a trip to Newfoundland and some of the lower rent parts of the United States.  In my absence the pigeons that I normally chase off my balcony with curses took advantage of the reduced number of irritable humans to set up home in my stereo cabinet.

I returned from my trip to find pigeons cooing proprietarily over my cabinet.  Furthermore closer inspection revealed that a rather poor quality nest had been slapped together inside the cabinet and said nest contained a pair of eggs, presumably pigeon eggs.  I have to confess I was quite excited.  In a second the pigeons went from irritating disease bags that shit everywhere to irritating disease bags that shit everywhere who were going to be parents.  Since I provided the venue I figured I was entitled to be considered a stepfather or balcony father at the very least.

I did my best not to pester the pigeons too much although popping out from time to time to see if the eggs had hatched proved irresistible, as did posting updates on facebook with my exciting news.  If nothing else this has highlighted exactly how uneventful my life is under normal circumstances.  A week or two after the egg discovery my patience (and that of the pigeons) was rewarded with a pair of spectacularly ugly pigeon babies.  Once again I indulged in a positive orgy of facebook updates and compounded this by waving the photos under the nose of every friend, relative and work colleague who couldn't physically fight their way out.  

I think you know where this is going.  Anyway, last night I scraped two dead pigeon babies into a plastic bag and trotted them down to the garbage bins.  While I was there I noticed a couple of plump, healthy looking slugs.  I'm not going to photograph them, I'm not going to name them and I'm not going to mention them ever again.  With any luck they might survive the week. 

I find it amusing that The Lion King managed to explain the cycle of life without actually showing a single eviscerated gazelle.  In actual fact the cycle of life ends with death, at least for the cyclist.  From a non sentimental "poor baby pigeons" perspective this doesn't particularly worry me.  When people say that their ancestors live in them I simply assume they have multiple personality disorder and if nobody died the world would be pretty crowded by now.  But I'm not crazy about picking up baby pigeons and dropping them in the bin so possibly its time to get rid of my stereo cabinet and encourage the pigeons to breed elsewhere.