He was obsessed, and it felt like the whole world was blind except for him. The average pedestrian, with their melancholic walk, strolled by without even a look over their shoulder. Maybe they were all tourists, and so they couldn’t understand the significance, the absolute improbability of what was happening right by their feet.

******

        Jonathan Francis Weiss was a lonely man. He went to work alone, surrounded by an anthill of interns, secretaries, and contractors who shuffled their way around the floor. This cohesive mob helped make metal guardrails for highways, an important yet under appreciated job. His role was to make sure they turned a profit. So, he was constantly besieged by this little coalition of worker ants whenever cuts had to be made, because they never saw it how it was. He never had a choice. His boss would complain to him to fix the low quarterly margins, and he would fix them.

        After a long day Jonathan would take two busses and a train to his low-rent apartment complex. This commute caused for his alarm to blare at five in the morning, every morning, for his seven o’clock punch-in. His routine never changed: sleep on the first s***ty bus, read on the s***ty train, and complain until his last stop, on his last s***ty bus. This order was preserved for the commute back. First sleep, then read, and then complain, until he had made his way home.

        His home was never a surprise. He would always approach the beige, thirty-floor sky rise from the same brick path, from the same bus stop. The same bus stop where the same overweight Cuban lady sold churros. Or maybe she was Puerto Rican, he never asked. 

        He would ride the same metallic elevator and always press nineteen. He always had the same doormat – WELCOME – which he hated. He would always fumble with his keys, which would never behave and cause him to try at least three times until he found the right one. Once he did, and he opened the door, he would wipe his feet on a dustycarpet and take off his boots. Then he would head over to the couch and watch television until he was called for dinner, which was always mundane.

        The dining table was new, but had been quickly smeared, smudged, and fouled up until it was indiscriminable from the rest of the house. Nothing was ever clean for long. The tables, chairs, couches, desks, beds, carpets, closets, rooms all stayed dirty. Most of the time his son, Francis, was dirty, which caused his dog, and sister to have spots and wrinkles of their own. Even his own wife, an artist, would come home with paint in her hair, and charcoal on her hands. He hated the dirt, and it followed him everywhere: off the tables and chairs, out the doorway, onto the brick path, around the bus stop, into the buses and the train, and into his office. He never left the dirt.

        One morning, however, in between the train, and the second bus there was a brief moment, out of the corner of his eye, where he saw a pigeon, an all white pigeon. It had no blemishes, no streaks of gray or brown. Its feet were pink and its nails clean. It had no garbage in its talons and no mice in its beak. It was a perfect pigeon, a clean pigeon. Excitement, and anxiety flooded through every crevice of Jonathan’s body. Blood quickly rushed, out of its induced comma. He felt clean and good.

        It was there again the next day. A bright spot on the old, gummed-up sidewalk. It was bright, and when it wonderfully opened its wings Jon looked again. It was white all over, all over, every nook and cranny, every feather, all white. He went to work with pep in his step; he never knew pep. The next day, same, white, white, white. He went home happy; he kissed his dirty son, daughter, and wife. Gave them great hugs and played with them on their dirty rug. He ate the mundane dinner joyously and laughed when his keys fell out of his hands.

        Every day he would see that pigeon, eating, flying, or just instinctively bobbing its head around. It made him happy; he was happy. Some days he would only see a flash of its wings as it flew away, other days it would let him just stare. He started to want to touch its wings, maybe itch its head, hoping to feel the smoothness of its white feathers. Every day he would inch closer. He never wanted to scare it though. He never wanted to be the reason it flew away.

        His life started to seem more momentary. Every second stopped spilling into the next one, hours stopped blending, and days felt whole. Even though the routes, dinners, family never changed, they seemed nicer, more comforting. It turns out the churro lady was Mexican; as it turns out churros are a Mexican desert. Why had he never asked?

        His life was going smoothly. Yet every moment seemed to revolve around the apex of seeing his friend again, his secret friend. He never told anyone about his discovery. Even as his mood changed, to the rest of the world it seemed unprecedented. He seemingly just became jovial.

        He became excited with this new vigor. Now, he walked with purpose and pace, which became more evident the closer he got to greeting his friend, his all white, clean, and beautiful friend. Yet, one time, when he had slowed his pace to admire his reliable companion, his energy got the better of him. He stepped too close. Quickly, without a second thought, the all white pigeon had flown away.

        After this the world seemingly went darker and greyer than it ever was before. He moved slower and more sluggish than he had in the past. His discontent with his coworkers bred into contempt and disgust. He now ate none of the meals his wife made, and he grew paler. His shirts sagged in the morning, yet he hoped his ally had not abandoned him completely, and might return. He understood that he would have to work hard to win back the trust they once had. He would make sure to take it slower, one centimeter a day, one millimeter if necessary.

        To his greatest delight, as he made his way from the train to the bus, there it was. Yet something was different. Its head was still pale like the moon. Its chest was still pure and untouched. Its wings were still perfect in both color and dimension. But, lining the tips of all the tail feathers was a streak of grey, almost as if it was painted on. Jon couldn’t believe what he saw; his face went undone. After a couple of seconds he finally was able to put himself back together, understanding that he was being punished for what he had done earlier. Now he remained positive, it was still back.

        He continued his day and night with similar vigor as he had before. He kissed his wife, he rode the train, he ate his dinner, and he did his job. He was motivated to regain the trust he had lost; yet as he saw the pigeon for the second time since he had scared it, the smudge that had lightly dyed the tail feathers had grown. Now the end of the wings, and the very pinnacle of its head had a slightly dull tone to them.

The spreading continued.

        Every day, day after day, the dull colors would fill more and more of the feathers. Contaminating, desanctifying the purity which made this pigeon so special. Grey, grey, grey. It kept getting worse; a plague was flooding through this poor creature, yet it didn’t seem to notice. It bobbed its head like it, and every other pigeon, always did. It spread its wings, like it had before, but now it showed splotches of black and brown and green. Soon the only bit left, the last safe haven, remained right at the center of its breast. Yet, after a while it was covered as well.

        Jonathan was devastated. He was analogous to rubble. He had never been great. He never was spectacular at any point in his life. He accepted that. So if the old saying goes, “the bigger they are, the harder they fall,” he questioned why he fell so hard?

        He grew even more distant, daydreameing about sabotaging the factory, just a loose screw in an important place. Soon, he started coming home late, just wandering the streets hoping he could find what was lost.

        Then one day, still deep into his gloom, when he was on his couch watching his television, when he saw a flash of movement on his porch. He slowly got up, shuffled to the glass door, and moved it to its side. Looking up to the far side of the balcony he saw, again, the captivating white brilliance of the pigeon he once knew. He was skeptical. He was skeptical until he saw it open up its wings, and once again, all he saw was white. He moved closer. Closer and closer, millimeters became centimeters, which became inches and feet. He opened his arms and reached out. Momentum in front of him, he lunged forward. The bird started to open up its wings, yet he would not lose it again. The bird’s departure out stepped his hands, and the bird started to fly away.

        He would not lose it again. One leg first, over the rail, he look out to see it flying. Maybe he could jump, all he wanted was a single feather, maybe the one just at the very end of the tail. He could do it.

        Yet, just as he was about to throw his other leg over and leap, something caught his eye back on the balcony. He slowly secured himself back behind the rail, and stepped closer to a little pile of seemingly ambiguous junk that nestled the porch’s farthest corner. He cleared his view, removing some old rags, until all he saw was them. At his feet were dozens of empty paint cans, all of the same color, white.