Rat of the sky is now public enemy No. 1

Oh, but you fail to remember. You fail to remember how you wrapped your secrets around my legs – how you caressed my wings and whispered what seemed to be tender words in my ear. Your secrets and I flew miles together above the deep blue seas, yet I'm not a snitch neither would I consider myself a bad friend. You liked me so much that we traveled together, we moved together. I grew in size, we were many now. And I fly, we fly, but I wonder. No more notes to carry, I feel lighter now. Though I miss my friend. Have I failed you somehow? Our sacred bond of trust appears to have been broken. Why won’t you hold me now? Are there any deliveries I could take? Rat of the sky is now public enemy No. 1, but that couldn’t be me, no. Could it? If my body is created through my movement toward you, I have no “self” to refer back to.1 You shove, push, yell, shoot, poke, thrust, run, nudge, shoo me away. Shoo, shoo, shoo. Is that the secret that we share?

The more you push the more I stay. The higher you build these cold and tall skeletons the smaller you’ll be bare. You have no control over me. In fact, this bustling place full of polluting noise has guarded me better than it has guarded you. She speaks to me. She treats me nicely and she reassures me that the more you expand her the bigger I will get. Your desperation to build build build – expand expand expand is your own ruin. She laughs at you; we laugh at you. I share a secret with her now. I cannot tell. And I coo; I’m not a snitch nor a liar nor a bad friend. You’ve unknowingly built cold-like cliffs where we nest.2 This all seems oddly familiar – my clawed toes touch calcium, silicon, aluminum, and iron. There could also be limestone, shells, and chalk or marl combined with shale, clay, slate, blast furnace slag, silica sand, and iron ore.3

We grow even more. There are a lot of us now. I overhear your conversations. You don’t address me. You talk over me. You shoo me away. You poison, shoot, avoid, trap, scare, remove, push, daunt, frighten and kill.

I am a plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague. A plague.

It stops. You stop. We’ve grown so large you could not stop us. You call it an imbalance in the urban ecosystem. We call it an expansive agency4. We adapt. We co-exist with your manufactures. I might now lay and find comfort inside the slow-moving metallic beasts5. You don’t shoo anymore. In fact, you’ve left. We have taken over the long gray roads where you used to walk, move, laugh, cry, dance, mourn, and run. The big spaces full of objects bridge us now. I move from the inside to the outside, yet I remain close to the heights. You built a space for me to watch over you that feels familiar to my cliff, didn’t you? You did that for me. Why else would you bring me to a place that I do not belong to? Somewhere I had not been to before, if it was not to inhabit it? I eat, devour, nest, mate, thrive, run, jump, rest, coo, fly, and die. Rat of the sky is now public enemy No. 1.

This time, I hope you remember.

1 Manning, Erin. Politics of Touch : Sense, Movement, Sovereignty, University of Minnesota Press, 2006 pp. 136

2 Rock Pigeons originated from Africa, Europe and India. Wild pigeons reside in rock formations and cliff faces, settling in crevices to nest.

3 Cement.

4 Their agency, as living bodies that are considered a nuisance, has been enlarged by the absence of humans.

5 Kim de Wolff’s lively politics of belonging with human-made entanglements.