Pigeonhole
Felix Anker
We’d already been waiting for half an hour in the November rain for our ride.
Anna wrapped her scarf around her neck once more and moved closer under my umbrella. “Do you think he’s still coming?”
I had no doubt. I pulled a cigarette from my coat pocket and lit it. I had barely taken the first drag when our wait was over. Staggering, he fought against the November wind before landing with only moderate elegance.
“Good evening, Sir, Madam. My sincerest apologies for my tardiness, but you can see for yourselves what’s going on today.” He pointed his beak toward the sky and shook the raindrops from his feathers.
“No hard feelings, Mr. Fuckenberg. We’re in no hurry.”
I helped Anna onto his back before climbing it myself. Mr. Fuckenberg adjusted his tail feathers and pushed off the ground. Slowly, and as majestically as only pigeons can, he rose into the stormy night.
Up in the sky, raindrops whipped against our faces. Visibility was no more than a few meters, and Anna’s scarf had no more length to wrap. My umbrella was no match for the storm either.
“Let’s go inside!” My voice was drowned out by the roar of the rain. I gestured with my hands to show what I meant. Anna nodded. Carefully, we crawled across his back until we reached Mr. Fuckenberg’s rear entrance. I stretched open the door, felt the warmth, and climbed in, feet first.
I landed softly on a Persian rug, and Anna followed. The chandelier’s light in the entrance hall spread the scent of oranges. From the restaurant, the murmur of dinner conversations mixed with the clinking of glasses. An unaccompanied piano played Dvořák’s Symphony No. 8 in G Major.
“Much better.” Anna unwrapped a loop of her scarf, then the rest, and stuffed it into my coat pocket.
“Good evening, welcome, so glad to have you here!” squeaked the waiter. “Do you have a reservation?”
“Unfortunately not.” I unfastened one of my coat buttons and pressed it into the waiter’s flipper. “But perhaps you still have a table for two?” Naturally, he accepted gratefully, tucking the button into his tuxedo pocket and waddling toward an empty table, nodding his head. A window seat. Perfect.
“Here you are. Monsieur, Madame,” the waiter said, making a move to take our coats. We both declined. With a disappointed glance at our coat buttons, he returned to his post.
Anna drew a fish onto the fogged-up window and then wiped it away again. For a while, we stared out at the dimly lit street. Only a single carriage rumbumbled past, the seven priests atop swaying dangerously as they crossed the gobblestones.
“Nothing’s going on,” she said with a hint of melancholy.
“We’ll find something. How about an aperitif?”
Anna nodded.
“And maybe something to eat.”
We looked around. Aside from us, the restaurant was empty, and the waiter was nowhere to be seen. Anna’s stomach rumbled.
“Yeah, yeah, I’m already here,” our table rumbled back. “What’ll it be?”
Campari Orange for Anna, Kir Royal for me. The usual. The table sighed and fell silent. Moments later, the waiter brought our drinks.
“Anything else?” he incinibated professionally, his eyes always locked onto our coat buttons.
“The Coiffured Octopus, please,” said Anna.
“I’ll have the Bois du Tomate.”
The waiter remained silent, waiting, his gaze fixed on our buttons. We didn’t give in.
“Please place your order with your table!” he snapped before waddling away in disappointment.
“Mr. Table,” Anna began, “we’d like a bite to eat.”
“And I’d like a back massage,” the table replied.
Anna grabbed the wood polish from the neighboring table and started rubbing the table’s back.
“Like this?”
The table moaned softly.
Anna kept massaging while I repeated our order. The table fell silent, and before long, a moustachioed waiter arrived with our food.
“Here you are!” He waited and stared, but we weren’t fooled by a fake moustache this time– we had learned from our mistakes.
The waiter left again.
Anna’s octopus laughed and shook its head, bouncing its blonde spaghetti wig.
“Almost too good to eat.” Anna twirled the hair around her fork.
My Bois du Tomate, on the other hand, had seen better days. Its broken antlers had been incompetently taped together, and tomato sauce was already leaking from every crack. I unwrapped the duct tape, stashed it in my pocket, and broke off a piece of the antler. No matter how questionable the presentation, the flavor was, as always, excellent. You could taste the last remnants of summer in the tomato sauce, and the antler, when sucked on long enough, developed a rich, earthy forest-moss aroma.
Anna occasionally dipped her spaghetti hair into the sauce.
There we sat, sipping our drinks, chewing quietly, staring out the window. Outside, the rain had stopped. Moonlight chased the water between the gobblestones, mingling in places with the green glow of a neon sign, just now switched on by a hawk across the street.
“Oh, look!” Anna’s earlier melancholy suddenly vanished. “A betting shop! Let’s go please! You know we have to win something.”
As a perpetual loser, I was skeptical, but since the rain had stopped, I no longer needed all my coat buttons.
“Come on!” Anna rose to her feet. Downing her Campari, she tore two buttons off her jacket and slammed them onto the table. “This round’s on me.”
I slurped the last of the tomato sauce from the antler, Anna thanked the octopus eight times, and the octopus thanked Anna eight times as well.
Then we stumbled outside.
It was almost windless and pleasantly mild for a November night. Anna took my hand and pulled me across the street. The sharp teeth of the gobblestones could do little harm to our winter boots. Up ahead, however, the carriage had taken a hit. Two of the priests were desperately trying to re-inflate the flattened horse.
On the other side of the street, the light of the betting shop bathed us in a soft green glow. Together, we pushed open the metal door and slipped inside. The silk curtain behind the entrance carried the scent of smoke and freshly fried hazelnuts. We each grabbed a side of it – Anna the left, I the right – and pushed through, then clonkered down the metal stairs behind it.
“Twenty-seven steps!” Anna had counted them like usual. “That’s good luck!”
Passing another curtain, we entered the hall. More smoke, more hazelnut scent, less light. The sounds of slot machines filled the air, playing Brahms’ Symphony No. 2 in D Major. In the centre of the room, the waiter from earlier stood conducting.
“Look, up there’s the betting counter.” Anna led the way to the far end of the hall, gently stroking the wall of fur. At its surface sat the counter. Behind it, the bookmaker.
We wandered along the fur wall, looking for a way up. Climbing was useless since the fur was too short.
“Here’s a way in!” Anna stuck her arm into the wall but yanked it back out when the wall bared its teeth and growled.
One of the slotty swans had been watching and now blumbered toward us with heavy steps.
“Oi! Yous two!” the white plodder called out, its neck rolling further out of its body with each step. “Do you even lift?”
“Unfortunately no. Do you?” Anna asked.
“Indeed, I do!”
“Do you mind? Only if it’s not too much trouble.”
“Oh, nonsense, fiddlesticks and gobbledygook!” Having snouzed Anna’s hood with its beak, the swan elevated its head. Just in time, I hooked my umbrella handle around its neck and let it lift me up as well.
“Much obliged!” Anna tossed a button into its beak, and the swan disappeared back down into the depths.
“There!” Anna pointed excitedly toward the glass wall of the betting shop and dashed toward it. Beyond stretched the stadium. In the centre, the racetrack. Seven lanes for seven competitors. The stadium was packed to the last seat. Anna’s eyes grew wide.
“Look at that one!” She was already tugging at her jacket buttons. “He’s definitely going to win! He has golden shoes – that’s good luck!”
We went to place our bets with the hawk behind the counter. “Everything on the one with the golden shoes!” Anna said.
The hawk counted the buttons, pocketed one for himself, and clicked his beak. “Very well, very good, very gladly. Nine buttons on Saug van Bockenstein.”
Anna looked at me hopefully. “Come on, have some fun. The worst that can happen is losing.”
She was right. Life was too short not to lose. “One button on the black-and-white one.”
“And one on Thunderbolt. Best of luck, best of joy, best of success.” The hawk handed us two betting slips, and we fought our way through the crowd back to the window.
Anna swayed nervously from side to side, then the starting cannon fired. Roaring applause shook the glass.
And they’re off, ladies and gentlemen! The racers are all nip and tuck! In lane three, Grenade Flash pulls ahead, but here comes Saug van Bockenstein! The clear favourite in this race overtakes Grenade Flash, who’s running out of energy and falls back to last place. But wait – could it be? Thunderbolt is coming up on the inside lane! Is this his big comeback?
The black-and-white racer gradually passed the other weevils, closing in on Saug van Bockenstein.
Thunderbolt is only a trunk’s length behind the favorite! Can he still overtake him? They’re in a league of their own, battling for first place! Now they round the final corner, and Saug van Bockenstein launches into a final sprint! It looks like it’s all over for Thunderbolt! But wait – what’s happening? The favorite is stumbling! He’s tripping over his own shoes! He’s down! He’s down! Just before the finish line, Saug van Bockenstein is on his back, and Thunderbolt rushes past!
“No!” Anna banged against the glass, much to the dismay of the ruffled flickerfinch on the other side, who panicked and shed its feathers in fright. “Come on!”
Too late. Saug van Bockenstein was out. Others who had bet on him pounded furiously on the glass. More and more flickerfinches in the stadium startled and lost their plumage, soon filling the arena with red and yellow feathers. Thunderbolt tore through the finish line, took a victory lap, and triumphantly waved his trunk through the feather storm in our direction.
Around us, the cheers had fallen silent. A few woodpeckers kept hammering against the glass, but it seemed not many had bet on Thunderbolt.
“Here. Since yours almost won.” I handed my betting slip to the disheartened Anna. “We can share the winnings.”
Anna took it, still a bit gloomy, but excitement soon took over.
“I can’t wait to see what we won!”
At the counter, we claimed our price. The hawk congratulated us three times, pressed a key into our hands, and clicked his beak toward an elevator behind us.
As we approached, the doors slid open, and we stepped inside.
“Wow!” Anna’s eyes widened again. The elevator had a strange silvery layer on all five sides. She examined the walls, jumped up and down, making faces. “Do you think that’s us?”
I moved my body, and the figures in the reflections copied my movements. “Could be,” I answered, fascinated, repeating my movements.
Meanwhile, Anna had found the keyhole. Without hesitation, she inserted the key and turned it. The elevator let out a metallic hum and began to move. Faster and faster. Upward, ever upward. We grabbed the handrails, watching our distorted reflections swirl around us. Faces melted like rushing thoughts across the mirrored walls, limbs flowed through my stomach, towering waves rippled through my mind. With a pop, my ears plugged; with another pop, they cleared again as the elevator came to an abrupt halt.
Dazed, Anna took my hand and pulled me outside. The forest air, smelling warmly of moss, soon cleared our heads. Behind us, the elevator sank back into the forest floor. Sunlight beamed onto the ground beneath us.
“It must be spring again,” Anna said. “May.” She gently stroked a young woodruff growing nearby. It purred contentedly.
As a branch cracked behind us, the woodruff skippled up a tree.
“Congratulations!” A blue weevil emerged from a thorn bush, bowed deeply, extended its trunk, and trumpeted Schubert’s Unfinished Symphony in B Minor.
Arm in arm, eyes closed, we danced through the spring breeze until the beetle finished the Unfinished.
“Shall we?”
The weevil folded its legs to help us climb onto its back. I helped Anna up, then pulled myself onto his chitin shell.
“And off we go!” The weevil thrumbered forward, tearing deep furrows into the fresh spring soil. Like on the open sea, we swayed gently. Our eyes grew heavy, the driver told us the old legend of the elongated long-trunked one, and we soon drifted into deep sleep.
After a few hours, we stopped in front of a tree. A colossal tree that – as far as we could see – towered above all the others. Unlike the rest, it had not wrapped itself in bark but instead gazed into our lives with a stern bitterness. We dismounted as our weevil began to drill. Carefully, he placed the tip of his trunk against the tree and moved his head side to side, as if trying to loosen an ancient bolt. Delicate yet powerful, he bored an ever-growing hole into the tree.
Anna was petting a moss cat, barely paying attention. But then again, she had never been particularly interested in the technical aspects of our travels – why start now?
“Phew!” Sweaty but satisfied, the weevil finally presented the tree hole.
Anna set the moss cat back under the tree and said thanks. Then she climbed through the hole, legs first, and let herself drop. I handed the weevil a small bundle of woodruff as a token of gratitude. Grateful, he lit it, doused it with French white wine, and sloozed it through his trunk.
Now I was allowed to climb through.
As always, I landed next to Anna on the wet asphalt. Mr. Fuckenberg stood beside us, shaking the raindrops from his feathers. We pulled our coats tighter around ourselves.
“What a ride!” said Mr. Fuckenberg. “I daresay I’m getting too old for this job.”
I removed three shirt buttons, placed them in his beak, and quickly pulled my coat tight again.
“Please don’t daresay too much, Mr. Fuckenberg,” Anna said. “We need you again on Friday. Same place, same time.”
“Half an hour later is fine too, depending on the weather,” I added.
Mr. Fuckenberg agreed, spread his wings, and with a single leap, vanished into the night sky.
“A successful evening,” said Anna, fishing the house key out of her jacket pocket. “Shall we?”
I nodded, gave the duct tape from my coat pocket to the passing priests, and followed Anna inside.
Anna wrapped her scarf around her neck once more and moved closer under my umbrella. “Do you think he’s still coming?”
I had no doubt. I pulled a cigarette from my coat pocket and lit it. I had barely taken the first drag when our wait was over. Staggering, he fought against the November wind before landing with only moderate elegance.
“Good evening, Sir, Madam. My sincerest apologies for my tardiness, but you can see for yourselves what’s going on today.” He pointed his beak toward the sky and shook the raindrops from his feathers.
“No hard feelings, Mr. Fuckenberg. We’re in no hurry.”
I helped Anna onto his back before climbing it myself. Mr. Fuckenberg adjusted his tail feathers and pushed off the ground. Slowly, and as majestically as only pigeons can, he rose into the stormy night.
Up in the sky, raindrops whipped against our faces. Visibility was no more than a few meters, and Anna’s scarf had no more length to wrap. My umbrella was no match for the storm either.
“Let’s go inside!” My voice was drowned out by the roar of the rain. I gestured with my hands to show what I meant. Anna nodded. Carefully, we crawled across his back until we reached Mr. Fuckenberg’s rear entrance. I stretched open the door, felt the warmth, and climbed in, feet first.
I landed softly on a Persian rug, and Anna followed. The chandelier’s light in the entrance hall spread the scent of oranges. From the restaurant, the murmur of dinner conversations mixed with the clinking of glasses. An unaccompanied piano played Dvořák’s Symphony No. 8 in G Major.
“Much better.” Anna unwrapped a loop of her scarf, then the rest, and stuffed it into my coat pocket.
“Good evening, welcome, so glad to have you here!” squeaked the waiter. “Do you have a reservation?”
“Unfortunately not.” I unfastened one of my coat buttons and pressed it into the waiter’s flipper. “But perhaps you still have a table for two?” Naturally, he accepted gratefully, tucking the button into his tuxedo pocket and waddling toward an empty table, nodding his head. A window seat. Perfect.
“Here you are. Monsieur, Madame,” the waiter said, making a move to take our coats. We both declined. With a disappointed glance at our coat buttons, he returned to his post.
Anna drew a fish onto the fogged-up window and then wiped it away again. For a while, we stared out at the dimly lit street. Only a single carriage rumbumbled past, the seven priests atop swaying dangerously as they crossed the gobblestones.
“Nothing’s going on,” she said with a hint of melancholy.
“We’ll find something. How about an aperitif?”
Anna nodded.
“And maybe something to eat.”
We looked around. Aside from us, the restaurant was empty, and the waiter was nowhere to be seen. Anna’s stomach rumbled.
“Yeah, yeah, I’m already here,” our table rumbled back. “What’ll it be?”
Campari Orange for Anna, Kir Royal for me. The usual. The table sighed and fell silent. Moments later, the waiter brought our drinks.
“Anything else?” he incinibated professionally, his eyes always locked onto our coat buttons.
“The Coiffured Octopus, please,” said Anna.
“I’ll have the Bois du Tomate.”
The waiter remained silent, waiting, his gaze fixed on our buttons. We didn’t give in.
“Please place your order with your table!” he snapped before waddling away in disappointment.
“Mr. Table,” Anna began, “we’d like a bite to eat.”
“And I’d like a back massage,” the table replied.
Anna grabbed the wood polish from the neighboring table and started rubbing the table’s back.
“Like this?”
The table moaned softly.
Anna kept massaging while I repeated our order. The table fell silent, and before long, a moustachioed waiter arrived with our food.
“Here you are!” He waited and stared, but we weren’t fooled by a fake moustache this time– we had learned from our mistakes.
The waiter left again.
Anna’s octopus laughed and shook its head, bouncing its blonde spaghetti wig.
“Almost too good to eat.” Anna twirled the hair around her fork.
My Bois du Tomate, on the other hand, had seen better days. Its broken antlers had been incompetently taped together, and tomato sauce was already leaking from every crack. I unwrapped the duct tape, stashed it in my pocket, and broke off a piece of the antler. No matter how questionable the presentation, the flavor was, as always, excellent. You could taste the last remnants of summer in the tomato sauce, and the antler, when sucked on long enough, developed a rich, earthy forest-moss aroma.
Anna occasionally dipped her spaghetti hair into the sauce.
There we sat, sipping our drinks, chewing quietly, staring out the window. Outside, the rain had stopped. Moonlight chased the water between the gobblestones, mingling in places with the green glow of a neon sign, just now switched on by a hawk across the street.
“Oh, look!” Anna’s earlier melancholy suddenly vanished. “A betting shop! Let’s go please! You know we have to win something.”
As a perpetual loser, I was skeptical, but since the rain had stopped, I no longer needed all my coat buttons.
“Come on!” Anna rose to her feet. Downing her Campari, she tore two buttons off her jacket and slammed them onto the table. “This round’s on me.”
I slurped the last of the tomato sauce from the antler, Anna thanked the octopus eight times, and the octopus thanked Anna eight times as well.
Then we stumbled outside.
It was almost windless and pleasantly mild for a November night. Anna took my hand and pulled me across the street. The sharp teeth of the gobblestones could do little harm to our winter boots. Up ahead, however, the carriage had taken a hit. Two of the priests were desperately trying to re-inflate the flattened horse.
On the other side of the street, the light of the betting shop bathed us in a soft green glow. Together, we pushed open the metal door and slipped inside. The silk curtain behind the entrance carried the scent of smoke and freshly fried hazelnuts. We each grabbed a side of it – Anna the left, I the right – and pushed through, then clonkered down the metal stairs behind it.
“Twenty-seven steps!” Anna had counted them like usual. “That’s good luck!”
Passing another curtain, we entered the hall. More smoke, more hazelnut scent, less light. The sounds of slot machines filled the air, playing Brahms’ Symphony No. 2 in D Major. In the centre of the room, the waiter from earlier stood conducting.
“Look, up there’s the betting counter.” Anna led the way to the far end of the hall, gently stroking the wall of fur. At its surface sat the counter. Behind it, the bookmaker.
We wandered along the fur wall, looking for a way up. Climbing was useless since the fur was too short.
“Here’s a way in!” Anna stuck her arm into the wall but yanked it back out when the wall bared its teeth and growled.
One of the slotty swans had been watching and now blumbered toward us with heavy steps.
“Oi! Yous two!” the white plodder called out, its neck rolling further out of its body with each step. “Do you even lift?”
“Unfortunately no. Do you?” Anna asked.
“Indeed, I do!”
“Do you mind? Only if it’s not too much trouble.”
“Oh, nonsense, fiddlesticks and gobbledygook!” Having snouzed Anna’s hood with its beak, the swan elevated its head. Just in time, I hooked my umbrella handle around its neck and let it lift me up as well.
“Much obliged!” Anna tossed a button into its beak, and the swan disappeared back down into the depths.
“There!” Anna pointed excitedly toward the glass wall of the betting shop and dashed toward it. Beyond stretched the stadium. In the centre, the racetrack. Seven lanes for seven competitors. The stadium was packed to the last seat. Anna’s eyes grew wide.
“Look at that one!” She was already tugging at her jacket buttons. “He’s definitely going to win! He has golden shoes – that’s good luck!”
We went to place our bets with the hawk behind the counter. “Everything on the one with the golden shoes!” Anna said.
The hawk counted the buttons, pocketed one for himself, and clicked his beak. “Very well, very good, very gladly. Nine buttons on Saug van Bockenstein.”
Anna looked at me hopefully. “Come on, have some fun. The worst that can happen is losing.”
She was right. Life was too short not to lose. “One button on the black-and-white one.”
“And one on Thunderbolt. Best of luck, best of joy, best of success.” The hawk handed us two betting slips, and we fought our way through the crowd back to the window.
Anna swayed nervously from side to side, then the starting cannon fired. Roaring applause shook the glass.
And they’re off, ladies and gentlemen! The racers are all nip and tuck! In lane three, Grenade Flash pulls ahead, but here comes Saug van Bockenstein! The clear favourite in this race overtakes Grenade Flash, who’s running out of energy and falls back to last place. But wait – could it be? Thunderbolt is coming up on the inside lane! Is this his big comeback?
The black-and-white racer gradually passed the other weevils, closing in on Saug van Bockenstein.
Thunderbolt is only a trunk’s length behind the favorite! Can he still overtake him? They’re in a league of their own, battling for first place! Now they round the final corner, and Saug van Bockenstein launches into a final sprint! It looks like it’s all over for Thunderbolt! But wait – what’s happening? The favorite is stumbling! He’s tripping over his own shoes! He’s down! He’s down! Just before the finish line, Saug van Bockenstein is on his back, and Thunderbolt rushes past!
“No!” Anna banged against the glass, much to the dismay of the ruffled flickerfinch on the other side, who panicked and shed its feathers in fright. “Come on!”
Too late. Saug van Bockenstein was out. Others who had bet on him pounded furiously on the glass. More and more flickerfinches in the stadium startled and lost their plumage, soon filling the arena with red and yellow feathers. Thunderbolt tore through the finish line, took a victory lap, and triumphantly waved his trunk through the feather storm in our direction.
Around us, the cheers had fallen silent. A few woodpeckers kept hammering against the glass, but it seemed not many had bet on Thunderbolt.
“Here. Since yours almost won.” I handed my betting slip to the disheartened Anna. “We can share the winnings.”
Anna took it, still a bit gloomy, but excitement soon took over.
“I can’t wait to see what we won!”
At the counter, we claimed our price. The hawk congratulated us three times, pressed a key into our hands, and clicked his beak toward an elevator behind us.
As we approached, the doors slid open, and we stepped inside.
“Wow!” Anna’s eyes widened again. The elevator had a strange silvery layer on all five sides. She examined the walls, jumped up and down, making faces. “Do you think that’s us?”
I moved my body, and the figures in the reflections copied my movements. “Could be,” I answered, fascinated, repeating my movements.
Meanwhile, Anna had found the keyhole. Without hesitation, she inserted the key and turned it. The elevator let out a metallic hum and began to move. Faster and faster. Upward, ever upward. We grabbed the handrails, watching our distorted reflections swirl around us. Faces melted like rushing thoughts across the mirrored walls, limbs flowed through my stomach, towering waves rippled through my mind. With a pop, my ears plugged; with another pop, they cleared again as the elevator came to an abrupt halt.
Dazed, Anna took my hand and pulled me outside. The forest air, smelling warmly of moss, soon cleared our heads. Behind us, the elevator sank back into the forest floor. Sunlight beamed onto the ground beneath us.
“It must be spring again,” Anna said. “May.” She gently stroked a young woodruff growing nearby. It purred contentedly.
As a branch cracked behind us, the woodruff skippled up a tree.
“Congratulations!” A blue weevil emerged from a thorn bush, bowed deeply, extended its trunk, and trumpeted Schubert’s Unfinished Symphony in B Minor.
Arm in arm, eyes closed, we danced through the spring breeze until the beetle finished the Unfinished.
“Shall we?”
The weevil folded its legs to help us climb onto its back. I helped Anna up, then pulled myself onto his chitin shell.
“And off we go!” The weevil thrumbered forward, tearing deep furrows into the fresh spring soil. Like on the open sea, we swayed gently. Our eyes grew heavy, the driver told us the old legend of the elongated long-trunked one, and we soon drifted into deep sleep.
After a few hours, we stopped in front of a tree. A colossal tree that – as far as we could see – towered above all the others. Unlike the rest, it had not wrapped itself in bark but instead gazed into our lives with a stern bitterness. We dismounted as our weevil began to drill. Carefully, he placed the tip of his trunk against the tree and moved his head side to side, as if trying to loosen an ancient bolt. Delicate yet powerful, he bored an ever-growing hole into the tree.
Anna was petting a moss cat, barely paying attention. But then again, she had never been particularly interested in the technical aspects of our travels – why start now?
“Phew!” Sweaty but satisfied, the weevil finally presented the tree hole.
Anna set the moss cat back under the tree and said thanks. Then she climbed through the hole, legs first, and let herself drop. I handed the weevil a small bundle of woodruff as a token of gratitude. Grateful, he lit it, doused it with French white wine, and sloozed it through his trunk.
Now I was allowed to climb through.
As always, I landed next to Anna on the wet asphalt. Mr. Fuckenberg stood beside us, shaking the raindrops from his feathers. We pulled our coats tighter around ourselves.
“What a ride!” said Mr. Fuckenberg. “I daresay I’m getting too old for this job.”
I removed three shirt buttons, placed them in his beak, and quickly pulled my coat tight again.
“Please don’t daresay too much, Mr. Fuckenberg,” Anna said. “We need you again on Friday. Same place, same time.”
“Half an hour later is fine too, depending on the weather,” I added.
Mr. Fuckenberg agreed, spread his wings, and with a single leap, vanished into the night sky.
“A successful evening,” said Anna, fishing the house key out of her jacket pocket. “Shall we?”
I nodded, gave the duct tape from my coat pocket to the passing priests, and followed Anna inside.
Felix Anker used to be a linguist, now he collects stories at a hotel reception desk. Publications in English and German literary magazines (A Thin Slice of Anxiety, Roi Fainéant Press, Don't Submit!, Maudlin House...). www.felixanker.com