The message.

The message

It was sitting in the opposite gutter, unusually small and improbably clean. It drew his attention. Held it. A car arrived and ran it over. White feathers flew as it disappeared under a tyre. As he was driving in traffic the scene was gone within two seconds.

But a sense of horror remained with him during the next half hour. Illogical really, as birds were killed by the hundreds on Britain’s roads daily, and he was far from unfamiliar with the deaths of far larger creatures. But as he parked, worked his way down his shopping list and drank coffee, the brief scene occupied the forefront of his mind. In fact it grew and grew in import and significance, until as he approached its location on the return journey he felt only dread at the mess he was about to drive past.

There was no sign of the dove. No corpse, no feathers, which jolted him. He took the next right, parked the car. Locked it and walked back the way he had driven. Not a single piece of evidence remained of the death he had witnessed. He wondered how good the city cleaners must be. Too good – there wasn’t even a bloodstain on the tarmac.

He walked on 50 yards, pulled his phone from his pocket. Glanced at the screen, raised his eyebrows. Stopped and leaned on a fence in pantomime of addressing an incoming issue. Tapped the screen a few times, then looked up and round as if for inspiration. A tricky message requiring a properly-considered reply.

There were no cameras, no watchers, no parked vehicles, no signs of movement behind windows. This location wasn’t under surveillance.

So what the fuck had he seen? He couldn’t shake the feeling that perhaps the entire thing had happened inside his head rather than out on the street. It wasn’t a feeling that elicited comfort.