Roamsome Dove

Somewhere in my house a dove is most probably roaming free. No idea where it is – it could be behind the washing machine, under the bed, on a bookshelf, etc. It could be stashed at the back of a kitchen cupboard.

The worst part of this is the ‘probably’. It’s the uncertainty.

Two days ago the Man rescued this dove from the road on his way home from work. He doesn’t know what had happened to it before he came on the scene, but it was unable for some reason to fly away, and local cats were closing in on it. He put it on a cardboard box lid, put the lid in a big basket, and covered the whole thing up with a towel.

By this morning it had been in the box for two nights. When we lifted the towel, it sat motionless, staring with beady eyes. We weren’t sure if it had touched the food we’d given it – it didn’t even seem to have changed position for the whole time it was there. But I felt it was a good sign that it had survived this far; I think that injured birds die overnight.

I reckoned it was time that we took it outside to see if it would fly away. I called up the Man this afternoon from work, and asked him if he would try it when he got home from work. He gets home a lot earlier than I do and I thought it was best to try it early, while it was still fully light. He said he would.

When I got home this evening, the cat was sitting outside. I wondered if the Man was coaxing the dove out of its box in a delicate operation, and had put the cat out for obvious reasons. Rather than barging in, I decided to call him first.

“Hi, Sweetie. I’m standing outside,” I trilled. “Did the bird go?”

“Ummm, I’m not sure” was the hesitant reply.

“How can you not be sure?” I said, impatiently.

“Well…it was there in the pot plant this morning, and when I got in, it was gone.”

Pause. Only my darling Man could think that was a normal sentence. Sometimes you have to prod him gently to get something intelligent out of him. I took a deep breath.

“Ohhhhhkaaaaaaay. What was it doing in the pot plant in the first place, Darling?”

“I wanted to see if it would fly around!”

“And, when was it in the pot plant?”

“This morning when I went to work.”

“So you let it out, and didn’t put it back in the box…?”

“Well, it just…disappeared.” He replied, sounding bemused.

“So, has the dove been flying around loose in the house all day while we’ve been at work?”

“I don’t know…”

Deep breaths, Sprite, deep breaths.

“You knew about this when I called you this afternoon to talk about letting it go, and you didn’t see fit to mention that a WILD, LOUSE-RIDDEN BIRD HAS BEEN FLYING AROUND OUR HOUSE ALL DAY?” I grated.

“I didn’t want to tell you because I thought I might find it!” (like a small boy)

The weirdest thing is that he doesn’t think it’s at all weird that we’ve lost a DOVE in our house.

We’ve searched for it high and low. The only trace of it is two feathers near the fridge. The Man’s theory is that it flew out through the window in our room. The only thing is, this convalescent dove would have had to have negotiated its way through the house to the bedroom, noticed the slightly open window near the ceiling, flown up to it and squeezed through the hole. Unlikely? Maybe, but I guess no more unlikely than any of the hiding places that it could be in since we searched the house.

I just don’t know what to do about the cat now. Do we force her to stay outside, just in case the dove is somewhere inside? It would be so awful if we woke up tomorrow to be presented with the bloody corpse of the bird we had rescued. On the other hand, it would be pretty sad if we left our home comforts-loving kitty outside for days and the dove isn’t even here. I’m also worried that in a few days we’ll notice this putrid stink, and find the bird dead down the back of a piece of furniture.

Well, all I can do is assume it got out through the bedroom…and keep checking the shadows for a silent, beady-eyed presence.