Garry's World

Garry sat on the curb of the grey pavement, watching the morning traffic.  The cars inched slowly along, coughing out exhaust fumes into the cold morning air. Behind him was Planet Organic, just opening up for the day. Next to it was Dunns bakery, releasing the warming scent of freshly baked bread. As Garry sat on that curb he could hear many things. Among them the hum of the cars as they trundled along and the nine tolls of the church bell announcing the hour. He could also hear the shrill voice of a young girl being rushed to school while asking her mummy why it was called rush hour if the cars moved so slowly. Garry focused his attention on the young girl as she approached him. He couldn’t understand a single word she said, and even if he had, he wouldn’t have given much of a shit if he was being honest (or indeed understood the concept of honesty), for he was a pigeon, and pigeons do not care about stupid human technicalities, unless said technicalities give them food. What pigeons do care about, however, is avoiding being trodden on, so he flapped his wings and flew away.

As he soared over the small town, he felt the cool morning breeze gliding over his smooth feathers. Somewhere below him, several cars honked their horns at a rather poorly driven lorry, children yelled and laughed in a school playground, and an unfortunate wasp accidentally killed itself by flying too fast into the path of the W7 bus. Garry circled round and round in the grey sky, taking in the sights and noises around and below him. Many of them were of little interest. Then his sharp eyes spotted something and he glided gracefully down to settle on a pile of dropped chips outside the local chippy. For once he was the first on the scene, though his victory was short lived as many other pigeons swiftly followed, making quick work of the meagre portion. Garry returned to the sky and continued the hunt. 

He flew over grey roof after grey roof, scanning the pavements far below him. Somewhere he could hear an old shop sign creaking mournfully in the wind, somewhere else a dog barked obscenities at its owners, and further away there came the distant buzzing of a drill. None of this was of any consequence to Garry. He circled back and perched on the edge of a knackered old bench outside Sainsburys. This could also be a good hunting spot if he was lucky. And even if it proved not to be, at least he was less likely to get trodden on.

* * * * *

Garry was in a strangely quiet place. It was warm, rather big and filled with many large shelves of books. Garry was an inquisitive creature, and perhaps in another life he could have quite enjoyed being in this place, surrounded by so much knowledge. However, in this life his inquisitiveness was rather disappointed at the distinct lack of food here. It was quite bizarre, an entire room of humans, sitting around abandoning what was in his mind the two most fundamental things about being human – being loud and eating.

He quietly circled the warm place, looking for a good spot to perch. The humans below remained quiet at first, but soon a strange change came over them as they began to notice his presence. Their faces turned from expressions of concentration to sudden alarm. They began pointing at him and muttering to one another. Garry ignored this and perched himself on a high shelf, knocking down a couple of books as he did so. This caused a further stir in the people below. One man approached with a long thin object of some kind which he swatted at Garry, trying to push him off the shelves and out of this warm place. Garry flew higher to avoid it, trying to spot a perch that the man could not reach. This proved rather difficult. 

Then another change came about the room. He heard loud cries of panic from the other side of the room. Someone had become ill it seemed. A young woman sat doubled over on the floor, coughing and spluttering, gasping for breath. Red liquid began to trickle out of her mouth with each cough. Glad that he was finally being left alone, Garry settled himself on a high shelf in the corner of the warm place and went to sleep. 

* * * * *

It was a sunny afternoon, and Garry was sitting on a dark roof watching the world go by below. There were several others with him, sitting happily, occasionally cooing at each other.  The smell of freshly baked bread wafted up from the bakery opposite. The bakery door creaked loudly as customers walked in and out again and again. He could also hear the laughter of children chasing each other down the street, and the loud protests of the adult that was supervising them. He noted with excitement that one of the children had dropped a bread roll. 

Then, very abruptly he heard the sound of a loud wailing siren, rapidly approaching. This was not the first time that Garry and his companions had heard such a noise. There was a time when its occurrences were few and far between in this town, but in recent weeks they had started hearing it at least once if not several times a day. The noise was getting too loud for their liking, so the group disbanded, with everyone flying in different directions, zooming away from the large yellow van as it rounded a bend and sped by. 

In his haste, Garry abandoned the bread roll. He would come back later to see if it was still there.

* * * * *

The bakery was fully stocked and completely abandoned. The door had been left open. Garry was not first on the scene, but there was plenty to go around. And it was not the only abandoned shop on the high street. It was, however,  the tastiest one. 

* * * * *

Garry was flying over the high street. It was midday and the people were behaving very strangely. Almost like they had in the warm place with all the bookshelves. They were being very quiet, and seemed to all be sitting around staring at nothing. The ones that were moving were doing so very slowly, but some were simply lying asleep in pools of red liquid. None of them appeared to have any food. 

It had been a few days since Garry had last heard the painfully loud siren noise. He hoped that it wouldn’t come back.

* * * * *

Garry sat on the curb of the grey pavement, watching the morning traffic. The patter of soft paws scurried along the road, meandering around the abandoned cars that sat gathering dust and bird shit, never to be driven again. Some of them still held the decaying remnants of their drivers, their glassy eyes forever watching the road. Eventually they would rot away, until just their skeletons remained. Garry didn’t really heed them much mind, humans didn’t matter to him anymore, they didn’t matter to anyone. No longer a threat, and no longer churning out food, they no longer had any impact on Garry’s world. He focused his attention more on the bigger animals. The wild ones he was used to being wary of, especially the foxes, always on the prowl. What he wasn’t so used to dealing with were the house pets. The hungry cats and dogs that roamed the streets in their hunting packs, no longer reliant on human owners for regular meals. 

Garry could hear the noise of one such hunting pack approaching now, the rhythmic patter of a dog pack that had very recently learned to move as one. The sound of their sniffing and the odd bark as they roamed the streets. Garry focused his attention on the increasing proximity of that pack, sensing the danger he was in, and with a frantic flap of his wings he was off.  Him and many others. Sometimes the sounds of other birds hurrying into the sky would alert him of danger before he'd even properly sensed it himself. 

As he soared over the once bustling human town, he felt the cool morning breeze gliding over his soft feathers. Somewhere below him, two cats were having a brawl in a side alley. Unfortunately, there were no divorce lawyers in the animal kingdom. Somewhere else, he could hear a pack of ex-pet labradors who, on closer inspection, seemed to be taking turns to shit on the front porch of a lady who used to chase them off her once pristinely maintained lawn. Round and round Garry flew, observing the wonderings of life below. It was quieter than it used to be. A lot quieter. But there were still interesting noises to be heard and interesting sights to see.