Hello and welcome to the English Like A Native podcast.
My name is Anna and you're listening to week 38, day 5 of Your English Five A Day, the second season.
I'm here with a spoon feeding you five items of vocabulary every day of the working week.
We've been doing this now for a very long time time, and I hope that you've managed to build this podcast into your daily routine so that, step by step, day by day, you are building your vocabulary, improving your listening skills and starting to feel more like yourself when you communicate in English.
Now, today is Friday, which means we're bringing together the 20 items of vocabulary that we've looked at this week.
And we're going to do that with one big story.
And today's story is called Poor Pigeon.
Sit back and enjoy.
The suitcases felt heavier than usual as we climbed the staircase to our flat.
After three weeks away, the familiar wooden steps seemed steeper somehow.
And the long journey home had left us both tired and slightly dazed.
Our apartment building is an intimate one just six flats, three on each side with an outdoor staircase that leaves you exposed to whatever weather the city decided to throw at you that day.
We were nearly at our door when I noticed something odd.
Look, I said, pointing to the window ledge beside our landing.
There's a pigeon.
My partner stopped, keys jangling in his hand.
The bird sat perfectly still on the narrow ledge.
Not at window level, but lower down.
As if it had chosen this particular spot with great care.
It wasn't the usual city pigeon behaviour.
No frantic pecking at invisible crumbs.
No aggressive strutting about.
Just stillness.
That's strange, he said.
Pigeons don't usually come up here.
He was right.
In all the time we'd lived in the flat, we'd never seen a pigeon venture into our stairwell.
They preferred the street level, where dropped chips and discarded sandwiches made for easy pickings.
This one seemed different, somehow more deliberate in its presence.
We unlocked our door and stepped into the stuffy heat of a flat that had been sealed up for a few weeks.
The familiar smell of home mixed with stale air hit us immediately.
Priority number one was getting some ventilation going.
I headed straight for the bathroom, the one on the same side of the building where the pigeon was perched.
As I pushed the window open, expecting the usual flutter of wings and indignant cooing that accompanies disturbing any city bird, something unexpected happened.
The pigeon looked at me.
Not just a quick glance, but a proper, sustained look.
Its small round eye fixed on mine for what felt like several seconds.
I stood there, half hanging out of the window, waiting for it to panic and fly off in that chaotic way pigeons do when humans get too close.
But it didn't move.
It just looked at me with what I can only describe as resignation.
Well, that's weird, I muttered to myself, pulling my head back inside.
The evening routine took over.
Unpacking, sorting through dirty clothes from our break, opening more windows to get the air circulating.
I was properly in the zone now, efficiently moving from task to task, with the satisfaction that comes with finally being home.
I made a mental note about the pigeon, but didn't give it much more thought.
Post-holiday fatigue was setting in and we needed to get some dinner sorted before we both crashed completely.
It wasn't until later that evening, when I was back to close the bathroom window slightly, that I noticed the pigeon was gone.
In its place, however, was something that made my stomach drop.
A streak of blood ran down the glass, still fresh enough to glisten under the stairwell lighting.
I leaned out further, scanning the stairwell below.
Three flights down, at the very bottom of the steps, I could make out a small, still shape.
The pigeon hadn't flown away at all.
It had tried to, hit the window and fallen.
Come, look at this, I called to my partner.
He joined me at the window when we both stared down at the motionless bird.
Back on the ledge where it had been sitting, a dark pool had formed, much larger than I would have expected from such a small creature.
Oh no, he whispered, the poor thing.
The next morning brought a grim discovery.
The pigeon was still in the stairwell, but it wasn't dead.
During the night it had managed to move slightly, leaving a trail of what looked like vomit on the wooden steps.
The sight was both heartbreaking and unsettling.
I stood on our landing, looking down at the creature.
Occasionally it would shift position slightly, proof that life still flickered inside its broken body.
But it was clear that this wasn't a pigeon that was going to recover.
Whatever had brought it to our stairwell illness, injury or simple exhaustion.
It was beyond our help.
I had to admit it was a heartbreaking sight.
The practical side of my brain kicked in.
We couldn't just leave it there suffering, but we couldn't touch it either.
Stories about bird flu had been in the news and with all the blood and vomit, this clearly wasn't a healthy animal.
I made a phone call to the building management company.
We have a situation, I explained to the voice on the other end.
There's an injured pigeon on our stairwell.
It's bleeding quite badly and appears to be dying.
Can you send someone to deal with it?
The woman on the phone sounded like she'd dealt with much stranger requests regularly.
We'll arrange for our cleaning team to come out.
It might be tomorrow or the day after.
One of our neighbours, the young Brazilian guy from the first floor, had noticed the pigeon too.
When I looked down later that afternoon, I saw he'd left a small piece of bread near the bird.
The gesture was touching, but the pigeon was too weak to eat.
It remained untouched on the floor.
By the second evening, it was clear the pigeon was fading fast.
The small movements had become even smaller and the pool of blood on our ledge had dried to a dark stain that would clearly need proper cleaning to remove.
I was coming back from the local shop when I encountered two of my neighbours on the stairs.
A lovely young couple who lived on the second floor.
The man was wearing rubber gloves and seemed to be preparing to do something about the pigeon.
We thought we might bring it inside, the woman explained.
It's been raining and the poor thing is suffering out here.
Their intentions were clearly good, but I felt I had to say something.
I really wouldn't touch it, I said as gently as I could.
There's been so much blood, and it's been vomiting too.
I've called the building management, they're sending someone professional to deal with it.
The man looked disappointed but nodded.
You're probably right, we just felt so sorry for it.
I could see them wavering, clearly torn between wanting to help and accepting my advice.
Eventually they seemed to give in to my reasoning.
I know, I said, it's horrible to watch, but I think it's probably too far gone to help anyway.
The next morning, Friday I think it was, the pigeon had finally died.
I felt a strange mixture of sadness and relief.
The suffering was over but now we had a different problem, a dead bird in our communal stairwell.
I should have put up a notice, I realised.
Something to let the other residents know that I'd arranged for professional removal so they wouldn't worry about it or try to deal with it themselves.
But I was busy getting back to my work routine after the holiday and somehow I just didn't get around to it.
That afternoon I was coming back from somewhere when I bumped into my downstairs neighbour, the young Brazilian guy who lived on the first floor.
Perfect timing, I thought.
About the pigeon, I began.
I just wanted to let you know that I've arranged for someone to come and remove it professionally, so Oh no need.
He interrupted with a smile.
I've just dealt with it.
That's when I noticed what he was carrying.
In his hand was a plastic bag, and the shape inside was unmistakably bird-shaped.
He'd wrapped his hand in a bag, picked up the dead pigeon and was presumably taking it to dispose of in one of the street bins.
"'Oh, you didn't need to do that,' I said, touched by his consideration but also slightly worried about the hygiene aspect.'
He shrugged.
It was no problem.
I'm the one who left the bread for it yesterday.
I felt responsible somehow.
The next day, the cleaning team finally arrived.
I met them in the stairwell and had to explain that, while there had indeed been a pigeon and while it had indeed been urgent, the pigeon was no longer there.
They looked at me as if I might be slightly mad.
One of the neighbours dealt with it yesterday, I explained.
But there's still quite a lot of evidence that needs cleaning up.
To their credit, they got to work without complaint.
The dried vomit came off the wooden steps with some serious scrubbing.
As I watched them work, I reflected on the whole strange episode.
Living in the city centre means sharing your space with urban wildlife, whether you like it or not.
Pigeons, foxes and the occasional rat.
They're all just trying to get by in a world that wasn't really designed for them.
This particular pigeon had chosen our stairwell as its final refuge.
Maybe it had been drawn by the shelter from the wind and rain that the semi-enclosed space provided.
Maybe it was simply too weak to go any further and this was where its strength finally gave out.
In a way, our stairwell had become its final resting place, without any admission charge, just a small bird-seeking sanctuary in an urban world.
The whole experience reminded me of how different we all are in our responses to suffering, even the suffering of a small, unremarkable city pigeon.
My young neighbour wanted to bring it inside, to comfort it in its final hours.
The Brazilian guy felt compelled to clean up after it, to give it dignity in death.
I focused on the practical aspects getting professionals involved, protecting everyone's health and safety.
None of these responses were wrong.
They were just different ways of dealing with something difficult and sad.
Perhaps it would have been narrow-minded of me to insist that my approach was the only sensible one.
The cleaning team finished their work and packed up their equipment.
The stairwell looked better than it had in months.
Sometimes it takes a small tragedy to get things properly sorted.
As I climbed back up to our flat, I found myself looking more carefully at the pigeons I passed on the street.
They all looked so ordinary, so unremarkable, but each one was living its own complex life in this urban jungle, facing challenges I could barely imagine.
The next time I see a pigeon behaving strangely sitting too, still not flying away when approached I'll know to pay attention.
Sometimes the most ordinary creatures carry the most extraordinary stories, even if those stories end in a wooden stairwell in the heart of a city.
The bloodstain is still there, a stubborn reminder that I haven't quite managed to scrub away completely.
Sometimes, when I open that bathroom window, I still think about the pigeon that looked up at me with such resignation after choosing our little stairwell for its final chapter.
I suppose there are worse places to end a story.
And that sad little story brings us to the end of week 38.
I do appreciate you tuning in week after week.
Now, if you have a story that you would like to share, that you would like me to include in our series, then please feel free to share your story with me.
Some of these stories are my own experiences.
Some are the experiences of those on my team, but I'd be happy to share your experiences too.
So if you've got a story to share, then send me an email.
Hello at englishlikeanative.co.uk.
I'd love to hear them.
All right.
Until next time, take very good care of yourself and goodbye.
