Jellycat of the Day | 28th July 2026

a pigeon had died overnight in my backyard.

it was loafed next to the pool when i saw it yesterday—i imagine the same one i had to fish out as well—and i thought nothing of it, that it would recover and fly off, just as that house finch i had fished out also had those weeks ago. i was even about to take a photo, though got caught up in other things before i could remember to.

i don't remember freezing the way i did when my grandmother died, nor do i remember my breath catching. i don't remember my heart sinking as much. but maybe it was because we had all seen it coming.

i ended up moving the pigeon's body someplace my dogs couldn't get to it. i couldn't, and can't, bring myself to just dump it in the garbage; i don't think anyone or anything deserves that. i would like to bury it, though i don't know where, for the ground here is hard and not very suitable for digging up with just a shovel.

it's... uncomfortable, to say the least—or maybe unbelieveable—that its head is forever bowed down, its chest no longer rising and falling. i know it's no longer here, but it feels like it still is, that it'll wake up and fly off again in just a short little while.