Summer has almost set in and yet the pigeons cannot stop nesting in almost every available inch of our building. The paucity of space is so great that one of them laid an egg on the top of our air conditioner box in the balcony. There was no twigs or cotton or leaves or anything else that constitutes a nest. Just the egg, precariously balanced on the flat surface of the box. Ma had put a cloth to cover the box from dust and that was all the egg had for a nest. Looked funny, almost as tiny as a naphthalene ball, sitting all by itself, looking almost alive. The mother would come once in a while to incubate it but if you observed carefully, you would see it sitting on the overhead wire just outside keeping constant vigil. It is rather warm but my parents, on being told by me, have decided not to switch on the a.c for the sake of the little one. I had a soft corner for it right from the beginning, wondering how small, a creature which hatched from a naphthalene ball would be. Last night I was given this great idea of building a nest around it. I had not thought about it earlier but claimed that I did. Either way, I forgot about the nest this morning.
The guilt really hit me when Ma told me that when she had gone to the balcony in the evening to get the laundry in, the mother, who was sitting on the egg, was startled when the balcony door was opened all of a sudden, flew out in a hurry which caused the egg to fall to the ground and shatter. She even told me the mother was sitting at the spot where the egg had been, for hours after that. I had a fondness because of the resilience the little one was showing right from the beginning but its all gone now. Maybe I should have built that nest.
At least my parents can use the air conditioner again.