I Shot a Dove
“It’s my birthday today! I love birthdays. I wonder what I’m going to get!” I stick one warm unsuspecting toe out from under my duvet. The icy air grabs at it and I draw it back, quickly. “I should be allowed to lie in, after all it’s my….Wait!”
I chuckle to myself. When you’re fourteen, mothers can’t fool you anymore. For the last ten years my mother has crept out at dawn on my birthday to pick flowers and lay them around my place at the breakfast table. Today she has left it a little late.
When I think back on my previous birthdays they seem to be dull occasions: a book “love Mom and Dad”, money from the grandparents (although that has increased with the years). One birthday seems to stick out from all the others: I was five or so when I walked into the diningroom, a chubby midget. There was an enormous box. I clambered onto a chair and peeped over the edge, and there, surprise, surprise, was a tricycle.
Today, as I walk into the diningroom, there are no big boxes, but there is a long box on the table. We say the grace, and before the Amen my hands are reaching. All eyes are on them. I rip off the paper. The inevitable: a cardboard box. I lift the lid, and surprise, surprise, a pellet gun with a box of pellets. (Mom obviously never had anything to do with this one.)
“Now, son, you can only shoot mousebirds, white-eyes,…” Look at that barrel, and the trigger. I can hardly wait. “…and never shoot towards the house or towards any animals or people.”
“Yes, Dad. Can I go now Dad?” I don’t wait for the answer but rush outside. The grass still has dew on it but the sun is shining brightly.
There on an aloe in the garden is a sunbird. No, not that one. A mousebird in the mulberry tree! Quickly I cock the rifle (my brother was overhelpful in showing me how to do that) and put the pellet in “with the curve at the front and the dent at the back.” By this time the bird has taken fright.
Lesson One: always load your rifle before you start looking for birds.
But, wait! There’s another one in the tree. I creep up until I am almost face to face with the bird. I quickly raise the rifle, but before I have the chance to aim, and with much squawking, the prey escapes.
Lesson Two: aim before you get within five metres of the quarry.
No more birds here. Off I go through the vegetable garden and into the pasture below. A wagtail flies up. Didn’t even see that one. On into the oaks and towards the stream. I can hear lots of birds above me, but the sun prevents me from seeing them.
Lesson Three: where there are trees, there are birds.
I look away from the sun towards the two dead oaks and there, silhouetted against the sky, is a dove. Now’s my chance. I aim very carefully. Pinngg! The dove is unperturbed and starts to preen. Cock the rifle, quietly; load; aim; pinngg! The dove obviously feels that something is amiss and looks rather worried.
“Keep still, baby.”
I load again. This time I aim more carefully. (This isn’t that easy.) I take a breath, squeeze on the trigger. This time the dove just falls from the tree. The books (and brothers) tell you that this, “and don’t be fooled”, is the escaping flight. This dove just kept on going until he hit the grass. Strange. Then I see the feathers, all floating down, and I know.
A slight breeze takes a single, downy feather back into the sky like a spirit.
Lesson Four: doves are easy prey.
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