The Nest

The Nest Word Count 1655

The pigeon loved the smell of popcorn that emanated from the movie theatre on main street. It often hung around the majestic doors in hopes that pieces of the delicacy drizzled with butter would fall from the overfilled buckets the humans trafficked in and out of the theatre each day.   

Late one afternoon, the pigeon got caught in a crowd of people, and quite by accident, was ushered into the theatre. The pigeon merely kept moving so as to not get trampled by a group of Cub Scouts headed in to see the new Jurassic Park movie.  

For a while, it hid in the corners and shadows of the theatre. Eventually the theatre emptied. The lights went out. The after hours floodlights came on. The pigeon was alone. It scampered to and fro on the slightly worn out maroon carpet and happily ate the pieces of popcorn. Most had been flattened from dozens of shoes grinding them into the fibers underneath its claws.   

The pigeon found a box of colorful round discs and pecked at one with its short beak. The slight curve allowed it to dig into the box and pull out one disc at a time. The pigeon tapped at the disc with its pointy beak and the disc cracked slightly. It didn’t open up the way a seed does. The pigeon picked up the whole thing, tossed it in the air and gulped it down. It tasted like sweet nectar, with the tartness of an apple.    

There was a trash can nearby. Brown liquid sat in open cups and the pigeon drank from them thirstily. The liquid gave the pigeon the feeling of butterflies in its stomach as it sipped the bubbles. It was intoxicating.  

Now stumbling, the pigeon headed towards a big machine that contained the largest claw it had ever seen. It looked down at its own claws and back at the large claw hovering above, suspended from a wing it was not familiar with. Staring down at the pigeon with fixed round, glassy eyes were stuffed birds held captive in a cage. They were all red and black with white bellies. The pigeon had not encountered birds like this before. Why were they so still?   

The pinball machine lit up and played music loudly. It startled the pigeon and it scampered away from the arcade and found itself in the long corridor of movie theatres. There were so many dark rooms.  

About halfway down the corridor, there was a room that had a different feel when its claws struck the floor. They went click, click, click when the pigeon entered the room. As the pigeon rounded the corner, it saw…another pigeon. A friend! The friend was copying it. The pigeon walked to the left and the friend walked the same way. The pigeon turned around in a circle and so did the other pigeon.  

The pigeon cooed. It echoed. Was the pigeon’s friend talking back? As the pigeon walked towards the edge of the mirror, the friend disappeared, then reappeared as soon as the pigeon turned around again. It walked towards the shiny glass and tried to connect its beaks with its buddy. The pigeon's beak hit the glass and made a “tink, tink” sound. The pigeon didn’t understand.   

The pigeon click-clacked out of the bathroom and followed a trail of popcorn at the seam of the carpet close to the wall that continued to pass the dark theatres.  

It came upon a stairwell. The door under it was open. A smell was coming from the dark alley-like passageway. It smelled rich and heavy. It was different from the popcorn smell.  

The pigeon continued to follow the smell and saw a small light ahead illuminating what looked like a very large nest and a very big shadow. As the pigeon got closer and closer, it realized there was a person there. The pigeon was used to being around people and didn’t mind asserting itself to get what it needed to survive.    

The pigeon still approached carefully. It could practically taste the warm grease coming off the cheese from the nachos that the person had in his hands.  

The employee of the theatre had been staying there every night for almost a month. The teenager did a double take as the pigeon approached.    

“What the?.” “How did you get in here?” 

He was not mean. Just surprised.  

“I’m Rocco.” “What do they call you?”  

The pigeon cooed.  

“I’ll call you “Coop.”  

“Honestly, it’s nice to have a little buddy in here. It gets lonely after everyone goes home at night.”  

The pigeon looked Rocco up and down. Rocco broke off a small piece of nacho for Coop and dipped it in some cheese. Coop shared Rocco’s nachos and Rocco poured a little water in the bottom of an upside down paper cup for Coop to drink.  

A while later, Rocco set the rest of the nachos aside for Coop to finish and laid down on the dirty, wrinkled blanket in the theatre's emergency corridor where he had been hiding out for the past month. He was using one of the Angry Birds from the Arcade as a pillow. Coop looked at the stuffed bird in the eyes and then looked away.   

Just as they were getting settled, there was a knock on the emergency exit door. Rocco jumped up and froze. For a moment everything was quiet. Then another round of knocking. Who knew he was there?

Rocco went over and put his ear to the door, listening intently. Someone started kicking the door, over and over again. It echoed loudly and the door started to show dents where it was giving way. Rocco backed away slowly. Coop quizzically followed him. Before Rocco could find anything to defend himself, a bullet came straight through the metal door.  

Terrified, Rocco picked Coop up and turned to run down the dark alley-way of the theatre, when two more bullets came through the door shooting the lock off. A very large man entered the theatre. A bullet zinged by Rocco and Coop in the corridor. Rocco stopped cold and turned around, setting Coop down and putting his hands in the air.  

The gunman grabbed Rocco by the shirt and pointed the gun to his chin.    

“Where’s my money, you little shit?”

“I’m good for it, I swear Jessie.”

“Take me to the registers. I want my money - NOW.”  

“We don’t keep money overnight in the registers. It all gets put into the safe and the employees don’t have the combination.”  

“Then it looks like you’re completely fuc…”

Rocco had kicked Jessie in the balls. Hard. Hard enough to jar the gun from his hand and make him fall to his knees and flop over on the ground moaning in pain.  

Rocco grabbed the gun and stuffed the muzzle with the leftover cheese from the nachos. The fatty goo, dripped from the muzzle down into the barrel clogging it. Rocco took his ratty blanket and wrapped the cheesy gun up, hiding it and then put the blanket in the trash.   

Meanwhile, Coop had strutted up to Jessie. He had something Coop wanted. On Jessie’s wrist was a round piece of woven fabric that would aid in making a perfect nest. Coop pecked at the bracelet. Jessie swatted Coop away but connected with Coop’s left wing. Rocco came to Coop’s aid and kicked Jessie one more time in the ball sack leaving him incapacitated once again. Rocco swooped Coop up and took off running down the long dark emergency hall passageway.  

They passed all the dark theatres. They passed the room with Coop's “friend.” They passed the arcade with the scary claw and the entrance with all of the brown bubbly water in the trashcans and the smooshed popcorn stuck in the fibers of the dank maroon theatre carpet.  

Rocco opened the majestic front doors of the theatre and the alarm blared. He looked at Coop, gave the pigeon a little squeeze and released him onto the ground. Then he took off running into the dark night.  

The alarm kept blaring and soon sirens approached. The police had surrounded the building. The emergency door in the back was closed when they got there. Once Jessie recovered from being kicked in the family jewels, twice, he roamed the theatre looking for Rocco. After the alarm went off, he hid underneath the popcorn counter.  

While the police searched the dark theatre rooms, Jessie had a clean break for the majestic front doors. He started running and was almost out the door when he tripped on the half eaten box of skittles that Coop had been enjoying earlier in the evening. He went down, hard, yet again.    

Jessie’s bottom half was technically in the theatre, but his top half was now out the door. His right arm was laying on the sidewalk. Coop strutted over and started pecking at the textiled bracelet on his arm again.   

Coop almost had it, when a policeman interrupted and placed Jessie under arrest. Within half an hour, the police cars cleared the area. Defeated, the pigeon wandered the street until it found its usual town bench and settled in for the night.  

The next morning, the theatre opened right on time and the smell of popcorn emanated out from the majestic doors once again.    

The pigeon followed the crowd of people to its place of adventure it had the night before.  

The popcorn tasted even better than the pigeon remembered. It followed a fresh trail that had been dropped by someone he recognized. As Rocco and Coop made eye contact, Rocco extended his hand towards the pigeon. 

“I found this last night after the police left.”

The pigeon cocked its head to the side and then quickly took the soft round object out of Rocco’s hand and happily hopped down the sidewalk. 

Finally its nest under the town bench would be complete.