Around 12:30, as I’m relaxing in my bedroom, trying to make the most of my long weekend due to a catholic holiday of some sort that’s celebrated in Denmark for whatever reason – catholics are rare in Denmark, a strange noise suddenly penetrates the silence.

Out of the blue comes a flapping. Like a large pile of paper being swept away sheet by sheet. My brother, who was in my room at that point for some reason, probably something to do with Super Paper Mario coming out later than expected, or maybe about why .Mac sucks or something like that. It’s always pretty much the same.

Usually when a gust of wind moves the blinds, the flapping sound is not as loud. Not even remotely as this. My brother just told me to ignore it, “must be the neighbors.”

“The neighbors doing what?”

He didn’t know. Of course, even if they were rubbing aluminum foil on the door, it wouldn’t be as loud as this, and besides it didn’t sound as if it came from outside at all.

I searched the living room. No metal blinds there. I looked at the dining table, and there it was, on the window sill. A pigeon.

The window consists of three main parts, three panes, the middle being about the size of the two other panes put together. The panes were split into a tiny window on the top and a significantly larger bottom section – altogether six parts each individually re-sealable. This style is extremely common in Denmark.

The bottom right window was open, and the hook was anchored to prevent the wind from closing it. The breeze was pleasant and somewhat cold. It must have flown in through the open window, and since it doesn’t understand the concept of glass, it didn’t realize that the other panes were, sadly, closed – sealed even.

Poor thing, flew in, and bumped against the window. The flapping noises as I soon realized, came from its futile attempts at flying out the sealed window. It’s not going to figure out how to get out any time soon.

My first reaction to this rare sight was of course, running back to my room to get all the cameras I could find. That is, my camera phone and my Canon SLR film camera, which was fortunately already loaded with about 17 frames of good black & white Kodak film.

In the meantime, it kept on trying to fly out the window.

“Come here, you have to see this!” I yelled to my brother, who stayed in my room.

“What is it?”

“A bird.”

At that point I heard the door slide and shut with a loud thud. Unlike me, he wasn’t very happy, and decided that as a precaution, he better lock himself in my room. At least I had my camera with me.

At that point I declared that bird as officially, “cute.” Under its new status, it was protected against cruelty and had to be photographed.

The poor thing had to go though, I just had to do something. Not only because my brother locked himself up in my room in panic insisting I get the damn thing out.

At some point I stopped throwing bread-crumbs at the bird, and decided to take the broom from the kitchen and show it the way out.

Not that I specifically wanted it out, I didn’t mind it being there, not at all. But then again, it saves me a lot of dealing with my brother, who refused to get out and started screaming at the top of his lungs for me to get it out.

After some wrestling with the bird, it was standing outside the window with its back to me. I reached out for my film camera on the table, and took the last few shots of the pigeon. Portraits, I was practically half a meter away from the pigeon, taking photographs.

I was out of film, and so I reached out for my phone, but by the time I turned to look at the table, I heard again, the flapping noise, and the bird was gone.