Context first: I live in a relatively large yard. We own only one type of animal: Chickens. They have a coop in the backyard. The road to reach them is not very long but its narrow. It goes around the back of the house and narrows between it and the garden. It goes up to a waist high door. The door opens to a small backyard with with two directions: One goes behind the house where my window is and the other goes up to another door that lead to the coop of the chickens.
Now, usually, I don’t have to worry about them, except for when I’m home alone, I am supposed to take care of them. Should any wild animal decide to try something - and they often do during the summer, sometimes multiple times a day - they usually make a wild amount of noise that reaches my room first. The first time it happened today was a false alarm. Nothing had happened, but they were still making a lot of noise. I had found it strange, but soon after I left they calmed down. About 35 minutes later, I hear their dreadful noises again. My heart rips out of my chest and adrenaline begins pumping in my veins as I jump out of my chair and begin running towards them, fearing the worst.
As soon as I am past that first waist high door they stop making noise and I, still pumped up on adrenaline rush up to about 5 steps from the door just enough to see inside the coop. Initially I don’t notice anything wrong, my full focus and attention being on the welfare of the animals. But then something in my peripheral vision feels off, and as soon as I change my focus I notice it: Between me and the door into the coop, about 3 steps away from me, this whole time, a pigeon had been standing still as a statue, staring at me with a wide, red, unblinking eye. I took another step towards it, but it doesn’t fly away, its standing still as a statue, however I can tell from its subtle body language that its puffing its feathers up, maybe it was ready to attack? I stepped back and picked up an empty water battle and gently toss it at the bird. It hits and the force carries it a few steps to the side. However it does not continue moving, and it keeps staring. Unblinking and unmoving. At this point both my brain and my instinct tell me something is wrong with this bird so, having confirmed the situation I back off back the way I came, thinking it’ll go away.
A full hour and a half later, I hear it again: The chickens are rowdy for some reason. At this point, between games, food and talking with some friends I completely forgot about the bird. I begin with the same sprint I made before. I leave the house, walk around the back and as soon as I reach the waist high door, I see it. About 4 steps away from the door, the pigeon was standing in the middle of the road seemingly staring at nothing. For one hour and a half this thing had been walking around the back yard and I hadn’t thought to look. However, as soon as it notices me a dread runs down my spine as it resumes its staring contest with its red eye. At this point I grab a nearby broom and slowly bring it towards the bird. It makes no attempt to move or dodge. It just stares. However as soon as I touch it with the tip of the broom it takes flight into a nearby tree.
As I’m writing this I’m still trying to think what might have been wrong with that bird. While its passed, its wide, unblinking stare combined with its statue-like stillness whenever it saw me still fill me with dread.