PIGEONS ON CONCRETE

Taking out her headphones was like stepping out of a cocoon. She grabbed a desk by the window which overlooked the rows of contentious concrete flats floating above placid water. Flower boxes hung over the balconies. Little blooms of crimson and magenta overspilled from their ledge like butterflies in a sea of moths. By the waterside, people ate croissants with fumbling fingers. Some of them stared into the murky water and searched for a bottom they would never see.

Do you know they dye the water green at the Barbican? They do this to give the illusion of depth, and so you don’t see the reflections of surrounding buildings. There are a lot of interesting things about the estate. When Ava started her job as an interaction designer, she thought it was ugly. Why would anyone build something so grey to live in? Grey was for designated for things like carparks, factories, and slaughterhouses. But over time she became hypnotised, like so many others, by the twirling formations of terrace blocks. The hanging green vines snaked into her office, wound themselves around her body and ensnared her with strange magic. From then onwards, she’d follow the Barbican highwalk on her lunch break.

Yesterday was self-care evening. Facemask, rewatching old episodes of Friends, and a few glasses of an especially rancid rosé, followed by her usual order from the Chinese takeaway - a plate piled high with glistening noodles, chips, and lashings of curry sauce. She was just drifting off to sleep on the sofa with a dull stomach ache when it began. A quiet stirring down below. She stuffed the blanket between her legs and counted to fifty, then to one hundred. It was no good. Soon the thing was ripping between her thighs. She rolled from side to side until she was exhausted, but still couldn’t sleep. At seven a.m., she woke to sunlight breaking through a gap in the curtains. She was naked.

She felt terrible. Her morning shower didn’t help. Even wrapping herself in her biggest, fluffiest towel couldn’t make her feel human again. It was a slow morning. Her coffee tasted dull, and her breath still smelt a bit even after brushing her teeth. She wanted to call in sick. But the rational part of her brain said no. Today, she would pull herself together and disappear into her work. It would be a day where she’d conquer her anxiety and intrusive thoughts and post-compulsive-masturbation depression. In the mirror she whispered her morning mantra.

‘I decide my own success and happiness. I am capable of being amazing today.’

The mirror was all fogged up, so she could only make out a tall shape in the glass. She raised her hand, and it waved back at her silently. She repeated the mantra a couple more times. On the third time, she was able to say it without mumbling. It was working. The words moved through her body like a ball of light filling her up from her breasts to her flank. She smiled and the shape looked back at her.

‘It’s time to go to work,’ it said.

And then she was at work. She wondered if people knew. She felt them stare right through her white button blouse and her pressed trousers and recognise that she was not only a lonely masturbator, but a liar too. That she wasn’t a real and professional person, but someone who wriggled about in the night-time with Chinese curry sauce dribbled on the sofa. When her mind would start to drift, she’d pull her attention back to that same mantra.

‘I decide my own success and happiness. I am capable of being amazing today.’

It helped to steady her nerves, at least for a little while. She revised some company-wide accessibility standards and imagined herself as a robot. This was an effective way to recircuit all the bad parts of herself. That was until a chair rolled up beside hers and suddenly she was there, smiling at her, hands wrapped around an alarmingly full mug. Milky coffee spilled over onto the desk as she raised the steaming liquid to her mouth. Her hair was up today, pulled back with a purple claw clip, perched at the back of her head beneath a pile of black curls. Her lips were a glossy crimson. They left an imprint on the side of her mug after taking a deep sip. It reminded Ava of when she was younger and liked to collect leaves to flatten them onto paper, and dab ink over their crinkly surface with a sponge. When she’d peel away the leaf, it would leave a marking. Sometimes it was like black lace. Sometimes it was a system of intricately connected veins. It all depended on the leaf and the amount of pressure you applied to it. She thought about this while Tamanna’s red lips parted into a yawn.

‘I’m bored. Can you entertain me?’ she sighed, covering her gaping mouth with the back of her palm.

‘What should we do - plan our escape?’

‘Okay. You’re the only one here I’d run away with,’ Tamanna leaned in closer. ‘So, how would you do it?’

‘We could go out the window.’

‘I don’t think they open very far in this office.’

‘I don’t see any other way.’

‘Maybe we could just take the lift?’

‘That’s a boring answer.’

‘Maybe we could take the lift to get a drink after work today?’

‘I could do one drink, sure,’ Ava nodded.

She rolled off with a wink. From where Ava sat, she could watch her lovely hands poking out from behind a computer screen. They glided across the keyboard typing invisible words, bracelets catching the office florescence like firelight. Surely she was irritated at someone by the way she hammered the keys.

With an air of normalcy, she made her way across the carpeted floors to the toilets, where the reflection in the mirror gawked back at her. The image was distorted, blurring her face and obscuring her eyes into two black pin heads. The mirrors needed a good wipe. Shutting herself in a stall, she sighed with relief. She was alone. The toilet cubicle smelt pleasantly citrusy, like key lime pie.

Imaginary fingers unbuttoned her trousers and slipped into her underwear. Before too long, the fingers had found a steady rhythm and the right kind of circular motion. Achy pangs shot up her wrist. She changed hands. But digging into her panties, something stopped her. Something stuck in the seam. Grey stuff poked out from her bikini line, some clumps of fluff from her trousers. It was only when she yanked on one and winced that she realised they were attached to her skin. Dozens of feathers unfurling like silver petals.

Her hand jerked backwards. She didn’t scream, but her mouth hung open, contorted and lopsided. She wanted to scream but couldn’t. She could only manage some throaty grunts. Noises which barely qualified as human. A few moments passed before she came to and shakily groped through her jacket pockets. After typing out the words ‘growing feathers’ she shut the browser and pulled up the keypad. How could she explain what was happening to someone at the end of the line?

But she never had to work that bit out. After entering the second number nine, the phone dropped and cracked on collision with the tiled floor. What happened next Ava could only observe in a dreamlike sequence. Her hands – which weren’t really hands at all anymore – pulled back into flattened stubs. The joints in her arms crumpled and shrunk like burning plastic, pulling back until flattened neatly against her side. What had been full hips and long legs began to morph into a fleshy blob. From there, her spine flexed and twisted into a s-curve. Her head was now a soft baby head. If you were to poke it, it would leave an indent. Her thoughts got all mixed up too. Written out on paper it would look like this:

1. This cubicle is getting bigger.

2. I won’t fit into my clothes anymore.

3. Everything looks stretched.

4. These speckled tiles look like crumbs.

5. How will I get to the pub later?

By the time Ava’s toes had curled up into themselves and formed eight new ones, tipped with shiny black talons, there wasn’t much else to think about. Thinking in proper sentences felt unnecessary. It was much easier to just do. So that is what she does. She emerged from under the toilet door and beat her wings behind her back.

‘Coo-coo’

It isn’t until ten minutes or so later that someone entered the bathroom and made the discovery. With her phone and clothes still locked inside the stall, no one noticed Ava’s strange absence. Word travelled quickly in the office about the pigeon in the bathroom. Office security is asked to step in, only for it to be discovered that Ian is bird-phobic and therefore incapable of taking it outside. There is some talk of calling the RSPCA before someone volunteered.

It was nearly 5pm when Tamanna bravely entered the women’s bathroom, plastic bag in hand. As she slinked towards the target, the bird remained perched on the tap, not shifting its black gaze from her. The decisive lunge is made and there is little struggle. She emerged from the bathroom to a cheer of applause. She glided to the lift, down to the lobby, where the revolving doors waited for her.

And – finally – release. The pigeon thrashed about in the air, and for a second, Tamanna thought it wouldn’t take off. Would come crashing, down, down, down. But then the wings picked up in triumphant rhythm, and it flew out of sight.

In the air, it was weightless. The concrete towers were calling. An orbit of grey concrete and maple trees and shallow green water. Grey like its charcoal plumage. Green like the iridescent feathers on its neck. A habitat for Londoners and the shy shadows that live off their pastry crumbs. As it touched down onto the Barbican lakeside terrace, it disappeared into a flock of ten other pigeons who have found home in this urban forest. Here they rest for a little while.

Emma Hart is a British writer with roots in Edinburgh and Hull, now based in London. Previously working in journalism before taking a left-hand turn into copywriting, she’s currently undertaking a masters in creative writing at University of Hull. She enjoys writing short stories and is writing her first novel.