"One-Winged Pigeon"
December 7, 2025

Transcript:

Let me begin this passage by stating that I recognize full and well that complaining is futile. I've learned that there is no why at the root of a situation, only a "what" and a "how." So, what is my situation then, and why bother complaining?

Well, I am a pigeon who was born only with one wing. I can't fly and will never be able to. But my problem isn't that I can't fly, my problem is that I even want to fly in the first place, the sense of entitlement I mentioned earlier. It seems I always want more than what I have.

Really, I should be grateful. Some birds are born with no wings, but I resent them. They live their lives immersed in delusion, painting the walls of their nests like the sky in order to emulate a life they can't have. It keeps me up at night to wonder whether they're too deep in their clever delusion to realize they're deluded anymore, or if their psyche is screaming and clawing at them from the inside to release themselves from the hallucinogenic cardboard replica of reality they live in, devoid of the reason it sought to escape from in the first place. Both options are equally terrifying.

Then there are the pigeons who do have wings, the ones who I envy, for some reason, that does not follow through, their wings are nothing but vanity. They're able to fly, but to where? The air is dead, this grey anti-mass, this expanse of nonsense that seems to morph and shift around you and escape all attempts at rationalizing it. There is a handful of three trees clinging to each other, upon the branches of which we live, and a few other trees scattered throughout. Below us are shapes, distinct and of no nature, that make up the world. Beyond that is a forest, an encompassing green that extends beyond reason. But there's nothing to find, and it would be unreasonable to expect there to be.

And so, the birds have nowhere to fly. With the ability to do so comes the dizzying nowhere to fly to. They have wings, but now what? With or without them, how do you justify yourself? There is no why to go along with the "what" and the how.

But, to cope with their tragic situation, they nosedive into further self-imposed tragedy. Terrified that they are without reason, they trick themselves into believing there is by creating reason themselves, but in doing so they compromise their true freedom. They invent competitions around flying, treat the victors like they fulfilled some sort of universal purpose, and treat the losers like something to be loathed, to be fearful of becoming. They tie their entire self-worth to these competitions, of being the "best" at flying, and it becomes a rabid dogfight for a glory that isn't based in anything true. This comes out of the same fear of the reality of their condition as the wingless birds, and so I resent them all the same. It seems everybody always wants more than they have, and in fact what they want cannot be. I guess this rift is inherent to living.

But then again, even if I had wings, would I truly feel any different? The frustratingly arbitrary burden placed on you to be a "good flyer" to uphold a clever delusion to distract yourself from reality must be awful in itself. Maybe freedom is what you choose to do with what's been done to you.

Just then, another pigeon barrels into my tree like a guided missile, stumbling around in a confused despair. "Absurd! Absurd! It's all absurdity I tell you!" he cries, as he takes a trembling ax to his own wing.

"February Diary"
October 18, 2025

Transcript:

February 10:
People often tell me about the colour rose, about how thrilling it is to look at, about the unparalleled tenderness and intimacy it inspires, but I've never seen it before myself, nor have I ever come across the aptly named flower that shares its name. I wonder which came first... Perhaps it was spores from the flower that first inspired this feeling in whoever first smelled it, and the colour is merely a derivative, a faint, inaccurate but highly romanticized reminder, a blissful false memory.

February 11:
The 14th of the month is fast-approaching, a day that is designated to giving rose-coloured crap to each other. As you might imagine, nobody ever thinks to give me anything. I don't see the appeal anyway. Why does everyone only give each other things that are coloured like roses, that merely emulate the feeling that a rose provides, rather than a rose itself? Where would you even find one anyway? They're so incredibly rare these days...

February 12:
It's two days until the 14th, and there's no reason to believe that this year will be any different, and yet another wistful spin around the sun will go by without knowing what a rose looks like. I suppose the only way I'll see it for myself is if I stop desperately hoping for someone else to show me...
So it's settled! Tomorrow, I'll purchase a bucket of rose-coloured paint. Artificial though it may be, it'll be the closest thing to a rose I'll likely ever see.

February 13:
So this is rose...
I almost can't believe the bewildering beauty that has been absent from my life for all these years. Staring into the sickeningly gooey abyssal within this can is strangely and uniquely enthralling. Its gaze is comforting, its arms are warm, and its heart is pure. All these qualities that I lack. I understand now why this is such a sought after gift. Nonetheless, it would be a terrible waste to leave all of this paint in the can. My walls are lacking too, and this paint is exactly what they need.

February 14:
My walls are dripping with an ooze made from the joy of life itself and splashing against the floor, like the moist walls of a cave. I was considering laying towels along the floor to keep them clean, but once I witnessed the rose strewn across my walls, I realize now that they couldn't be clean without it. Perhaps next I'll paint the furniture, or my windows. I don't need to see what's on the other side of them anyway.

February 21:
I decided to opened my door today, and upon seeing what was laying on my front porch, I was instantly snapped out of my rose-induced daze. Last week, someone had knocked on my door, but I didn't notice, and on my doorstep was a rose, pure and authentic, but it was wilted. I spent so long painting my house with a sorry artificial replica of rose that I missed my deeply desired opportunity to see a real one. Someone had it in their heart to stop by and give me a rose, to show me what rose truly looked like, and I was too absorbed in my own artificial heaven to pay them any mind. God damn it.

February 22:
I've decided to cleanse my house of this gross colour, I can't bear to look at it anymore. In fact I'd rather not look at any colour anymore, may the rain wash it all away. Remind me never to trust a rose again.