The earthen walls shake. My feathers rattle against the cage as another blast startles me. The inevitable screams follow; the wretched sound of men killing men. All that keeps this pigeon sane in this fetid cesspit of death is the inextinguishable thought of home.
Home. A dovecot high above the city, surrounded by the bountiful streets of urban London. A loft, filled with the warm, earthy aroma of oats and the soft, inviting coos of my brethren. A place of safety, comfort and companionship, broken only by the occasional excursion with one of the humans that frequented the loft. We had a unique connection with home. No matter where we were in the world, no matter how far or how foreign the lands were, we could always find our way back. Its call, a physical manifestation of our attachment to the place, was a quality the humans found useful. Every once in a while we were coerced into temporary captivity, taken on a weeklong journey, only to be sent home upon arrival with a missive attached to one leg.
But this journey has lasted much longer than a week. I was taken first across the Channel, then to hell. For the past two months I have looked on as humans spit fire and death at one another, listened as the incessant explosions tore limbs from bodies and stained the air with shrieks of pain, and now, finally, watched as the humans who accompany me are gradually whittled down, besieged as I am, by bars and bullets of cold iron and hard steel. But most of all I have endured the unbearable longing for home.
A man walks in. He opens the cage. Two others share my cage. He reaches in; I instinctively fly away. He grabs ahold of one of my fellows. He goes outside. I listen, tentatively. The sound of gunfire roars momentarily. The thread of connection to my comrade is severed as its life is extinguished. The man comes back, stonefaced. Again, he misses me, again death roars, again, a part of me dies.
Death comes back into the room. It’s my turn. I struggle, I fight for my life, knowing that if I am sent out I will die. But secretly I long to be overpowered, to be sent back to the loft where I belong. And overpowered I am. The hands pin my feathers to my breast. In my desperation, my pecking beak draws blood. He quickly takes a firm hold of my neck too. All I can do is move my wide open eyes, which dart from side to side in fear. A scrap of paper is rolled tightly to my left leg. It weighs me down, but not by much. It’s secured as tightly as possible; it is this man’s last hope for survival. As I’m walked out into the open, I see humans standing together; staring, watching, hoping. One tugs a rabbit’s foot for good luck. The iron grip gradually softens, and the thought of home fills me with courage.
I spread my wings, freed for the first time in months. I flutter my wings, months feels like days - I was born to do this, not be cooped up in a cage. The calling strengthens. I orient myself towards the sacred loft, and leap into the air.
The sound of gunfire doubles. Bullets spin past me, crashing through the air. I cannot go back, this is the only way home. I remember the lives of my fellows, snuffed out in an instant. A bullet rips into my right leg leaving it dangling by a thread. The pain is excruciating, but I fly onward. I try to fly upward, away from the callous automatons of death. I’m past them now, their fire begins to die down. More gunfire begins; they have started fighting each other again.
The gunfire slackens, but isn’t gone. A bullet hits me in the chest. Pain shoots through me like lightning. I am tossed about like a ragdoll. I am pain. I falter, I fall. Pain, agony, torture worse than death. A cheer goes up behind me, the humans think they’ve won. There is nothing else. It pervades my consciousness - but like a golden bead at the back of my mind, my connection to the loft lingers. I think of home, of winging high above the clouds on rainy days, of strawberries and oats and fresh snowpeas, and of huddling next to my family on cold winters nights. I flap, I move my wings, with all my might. There is no pain, only the loft. I soar, the machines of death are far behind me now. I feel the loft looming closer. Past the English Channel, I see London, the familiar smoke, the bountiful scraps in the streets, and the loft where my brothers and sisters lie. I am spent, but I am home. I falter, flapping flusteredly as I fall towards home. I flop, a bedraggled bundle of feathers on the floor, but the angelic cooing of my siblings tells me I am home.