The Forever Now

I’m almost certain that there’s a pigeon living in my air conditioner. I regularly hear it warble a soft yet throaty series of coos in the evening when I’m in that intermediate state between wakefulness and dreams. I’ve noticed on more than one of these occasions that the sound of its mournful song resembles the sputtering of my own heart. I called the landlord about it so many times and he placated me by coming out to my unit with his ladder and tools akimbo but since he didn’t find anything wrong with the heating, ventilation, or air conditioning he just assumed I was making it all up.

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“You have to come in the evening,” I plead, “when I’m trying to go to sleep or when I’m working, that bastard loves to interrupt me when I'm working.”

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Now he refuses to come out to my apartment at all, John, that bastard, has even threatened to tear up my lease agreement. I threatened him right back with a lawsuit and he seemed to calm down after that but he still doesn’t like me.

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This pigeon is menacing me so I have decided to take matters into my own hands and put my work on hold so I can take care of this uninvited guest.

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When I feel lost and unsure what to do I turn to the World Wide Web. The promethean light illuminating the darkness of my own ignorance. It contains boundless information at the tip of your fingers and right now the tip of my finger rests on the possibility of a Peregrine falcon or Falco peregrinus also known as the Duck Hawk. It can reach speeds of over 200 miles per hour and has a notched upper beak which is an evolutionary adaptation that it uses to rip out the spinal column of its prey. I start to look for one for sale online and when I find it I feel disgusted with myself.

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From my research I learned that most hawks available for purchase domestically are raised in captivity and reared in cages all of their lives. They never get to experience the sensations that a hawk is hardwired to feel. I could picture it in my mind’s eye reveling in its own majesty. Rising skyward with the power of their own breast, wings spread wide pushing them higher and higher. The sun’s rays painting their feathers in radiant diaphanous light, gliding, soaring, floating, and then a sudden break, a dive, plunging downward, spiraling, and unsuspectingly snatching a pigeon from atop its nest on my air conditioner. I could see it all now but I couldn’t bring myself to condemn an innocent animal to such a shitty life in my apartment. That and I couldn’t stop imagining what its vicious talons could do to my soft spongy cranium. It could most certainly leave deep gaping wounds that secrete purulent exudate which would necessitate regular lavage, if not mechanical debridement, along with repacking and redressing.

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And Hell, let's be honest, it’s not like the pigeon was my only problem. A couple of months after I moved in I awoke one night to the familiar sound of a palm striking a cheek. The muffled cries bled from beneath the faux wood laminate in the kitchen nook, but when I cupped my ear to the floor it disappeared. The next morning I woke up and wondered if it was all just a dream until I went downstairs to do my laundry and John, my downstairs neighbor, bellowed at me hauling my dirty clothes carefully down the steps.

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“That’s what you need a wife for!” he hollered through his beer gut and two dollar cigar from the gas station.

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I faked a laugh that made me squirm later and went to the main office to speak with the manager.

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“I want to report a crime.” I said.

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“I’m not the police.”

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“No, but you are the landlord.”

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“Is this about the pigeons?”

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“Pigeon,” I corrected him, “and no, I think my neighbor is battering his wife.”

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“Oh! That is serious. When did you see this?” he inquired, suddenly piqued by the possibility of violence.

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“Well I didn’t actually see it with my own eyes, per se, I woke up last night to what sounded like my father slapping my mother, and well, John is a sexist, not you, I’m sure you’re okay, I mean my father--no, my neighbor, you should have heard what he said earlier, he thinks his wife is nothing but a maid.”

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John politely asked me to report any crimes to the authorities, but he didn’t have to say it, I knew exactly what he meant.

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So then there I still was, rotting in my apartment, the purring ripple of endless coos echoing all around, and since I couldn’t live with myself if I had enslaved a falcon, I decided to play their shrieks as loud as I could from my television. I figured this pigeon would hear the screeching of its natural predator and scramble immediately. The pigeon didn’t seem to mind, but the neighbors sure did, and pretty soon John was banging on my door telling me to, “stop that fucking screaming!” He didn’t know though, what it was like to live on the second floor, the things I hear skittering around on the roof, what sounds like unsupervised children’s feet pattering on hot asphalt, feral cats descending on flock of pigeons, the noises of quiet dismemberment, sometimes it’s so loud I can’t even think.

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I decided to turn back towards the light and began researching the biology of Columba Livia AKA the Rock Dove. Through my investigation I discovered that the Rock Dove is a monogamous bird that typically only has two squabs per brood, quite the nuclear family, yet the one that resides in my vents seems to be alone. Regardless, I also learned that  the domestic pigeon has a genetic aversion to the Ataraxia Praeteritum cactus. Apparently, this cactus has a defense mechanism in the form of a unique alkaloid contained within its pulp that triggers vivid traumatic hallucinations whenever an unsuspecting Rock Dove ingests it. I called the local nursery and the young man on the phone told me that that particular cacti is illegal to possess in this country, unless of course, it’s being used as a sacrament in a religious ceremony. I told him about my situation and he gave me the phone number of a shaman that could come to my apartment. I called the shaman and told him about the pigeon and he stopped me before I could even finish and told me that he could perform the ritual. When I asked him what time I could expect him he said something I’ll never forget.

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“We live on a physical plane of existence. What we see, hear, touch, taste, or smell, existed first as a thought in your mind. Life is about manifesting on those physical planes and bringing your consciousness from thought to reality, your senses may lie to you and make you feel like you’re not really there and that’s when you have to remind yourself to live life now,” and with added emphasis he said, “live in the forever now.”

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I realize I have nothing to offer the shaman, so I run down to the corner store. I circle the aisles three times all the while wondering what a shaman eats or drinks. I decide on kombucha because it’s natural, organic, and costs nearly five dollars for 16 oz, so it must be good. When I get home, I sit and wait for the shaman. I hear a knock at the door and spring up to open it. I’m stunned to find a little Mexican girl holding a crate of mangoes.

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“Are you the shaman?” I ask in complete seriousness. She doesn’t understand the word and asks if I would like to buy some mangoes, the whole shoebox sized crate is only five dollars, she implores. I feel bad for the kid because she looks just like my sister and it’s the weekend and she should be learning Brazilian jiu-jitsu or classical jazz piano, not lugging kilos of fruit up a flight of stairs in the blazing sun. I reach for my wallet but I only have a hundred dollar bill, which I’ve set aside for the shaman, and I spent my last five dollars on the kombucha. I didn’t need to say anything though. She just sighed, picked up the heavy crate and walked down the stairs, taking special care not to fall. At the base of the stairs waited two more crates and she stacked those on top of the one already in her hand and carried them back to the pick-up truck where her lazy father waited with the rest of the fruit that needed to be sold that day. The midday sun had softened the mangoes and a swarm of flies bothered the girl as she loaded the fruit into the bed of the truck.

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The shaman doesn’t arrive for what seems like days and I doze off in my chair only to be woken up by a trinity of loud bangs. The shamen stands before me in a golden serape and says,“The door was open, so I let myself in.”

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“Naturally,” I reply, somewhat bewildered as I emphatically gesture to him to sit.

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The shaman’s name is Chad. He’s from Palm Springs and he’s less of a shaman and more of a drug dealer, but he’s got forged documents that say otherwise. His eyes look sunken, shadowy, and black and his gaze is tired but awake. He eyes the kombucha on the counter and asks if he can have it and I think about the girl with the mangoes as I reluctantly say yes. Chad digs underneath his serape and pulls out a sandwich bag barely filled with what looks like dirt and hands it to me.

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“Is this it?” I ask.

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“This is what you are looking for,” he says in a bored, dull voice.

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“Will that be enough?”

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“It’s not about enough or not enough. It’s about experiencing the liberation you seek.”

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“Will this get rid of the pigeon in my vents?”

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“All your demons will be exorcised.”

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I put the money on the table and Chad shows me how to properly burn the cactus powder. The smoke fills every corner of my apartment and I ask Chad if it’s safe for us to be inhaling all the fumes. He breathes in a deep lungful of smoke as if he’s about to say something grandiose, holds it, and then lets the smoke out slowly. Then he brings his hands to his heart and closes his eyes. “Manifesting occurs first as a metaphysical act, you must first abandon everything you think you know about the laws of science, the act of creation is a process that expels no heat and is one hundred percent efficient. It is a perpetual motion device that creates more energy than it uses.” I try to relax, lay back in my chair and wait for the cooing to stop.

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“If you can take a thought that originated in your brain as an electrical charge firing off between the creases of your grey matter and then snowball that into existence through the power of your own creation. Well then, you know what that means right?”

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I must have fallen asleep because when I wake up Chad is gone and the air has thinned out into a smokey haze. I run to the thermostat and turn it off to try and hear the silence. My heart is pounding so loud in my chest that it sounds like I’ve swallowed a snare drum so I take a few deep breaths to try to calm myself down. For a second the silence envelops me and I finally feel like I understand what Chad was saying about the forever now. But then, as if a siren rose from the distance, the sound slowly returns. It comes back louder than ever. The breathy coos start to trill and warble with a resonant bass that makes my hands tremor and shake and my vision vibrate. The song never stops and follows me around so that I can’t escape it anywhere I go. I build up the nerve and lose all self control resolving to answer this problem once and for all. I run downstairs and bang on John’s door. He answers the door in a stupor of beer sweat dressed only in his underwear and a wifebeater. I ask him if I can borrow his ladder and the pellet gun I’ve heard him use to shoot wayward cats. He’s reluctant to loan out his tools and asks me what it’s for?

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“I saw a honeycomb in a tree the other day and I want to cut it down and eat the honey.” I lie.

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“Well then what’s the pellet gun for?”

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“BEARS!” I yell over the thundering of coos surrounding me.

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He looks at me a little stunned for a second and then his expression turns over into an amused chuckle.

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“You’re going to need more than a pellet gun in case any bears turn up, you better take this,” he says as he hands me a pistol.

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“Are you sure I can use this, I mean I don’t have a permit or anything?”

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“Yeaah, don’t worry, it’s fine, it’s not my gun and you can just grab the ladder out the back of my truck, but you better bring me back some honey.”

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I put the gun awkwardly in my pocket and wait until John goes inside to set up the ladder. When I get to the top of the ladder I’m startled to find how much my roof has deteriorated. This is why my ceiling drips when it rains, I think to myself as I try to get a footing on the loose shingles. And that’s when I see it, the thing that has been tormenting me since, I don’t know how long. It is a grotesquely fat animal with cribbed wings that can barely fly between the dumpster and the AC exhaust where it nests. It’s too encumbered to go anywhere else. Its feathers are caked with the liquid garbage of a dozen hungry families and although it coos incessantly all the other birds know to avoid him.

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I steady the tremor in my hand and raise the pistol so that the target is in my sights. I take special care to relax my breath and focus my aim. I can see the eyes of the monster staring back at me. It knows what I intend to do and it doesn’t move. I finger the trigger gently just about ready to squeeze out the life of my tormentor when the shingles break from underfoot and then, I dive, I plunge, I think about what my neighbors will say when they find my body. John will probably say to John, “What happened?”

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“I don't know, he was acting kinda strange earlier, said something about bears.”

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Free falling, the words of the shaman resonate in my head. Live in the forever now. I accept my fate as time slows down to an infinitely long crawl. I glide, I soar, I fly and the last thing I hear is the laughing coos of a bird who’s finally been set free.

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