The Apocalypse (or) Other Words I Can't Type Right on the First Try
So I've decided to start updating my blog again. You can consider it a belated New-Year's Resolution, if you like, but really, it's more like a vain attempt to get my thoughts recorded in some kind of lasting medium - to create a record, however ephemeral, that once, I really did exist. Why? Because the end times is near. I'm not kidding. Every day, we come closer to the Apocalypse.
I know this because of the pigeons on my commute.
Bah, you say. Don't be neurotic, you say. There are pigeons in every major city in the world, you say. But I invite you to stop right there, and consider what you just said. That's right. They're in every major city in the world. They are everywhere. They can survive on anything - breadcrumbs, wrapper-ends, bits of twisted wire, human scorn. They've already begun takeover of the political and artistic centers of the world (Piazza San Marco, Venice - Trafalgar Square, London - United Nations Building, New York) - and they're on their way to bigger and better things.
In my small town, just north of the busy metropolis of Boston, there is a flock of at least fifty pigeons. I could tell you that they live near the Malden Center Train Station, but "live" is too generous, too innocuous a term. They hover. They lurk. They bide.
They have disciples - usually older women, traveling singly or with a friend, who feed them bread. On one particularly memorable occasion I saw two Chinese women in their forties, of identical height,wearing identical jackets, standing side-by-side on the chilly narrow sidewalk and hurling stale Wonderbread at the biding pigeons, their hands moving like automatons beneath their vacantly smiling faces. I am serious. This really happened.
But, believe it or not, none of this is what actually has me worried. I knew all of this, and accepted it, and was fine. That was before I started looking at their feet.
Hear me out, here.
In any population, even of seemingly identical individuals (think lab mice), there is bound to be some genetic diversity. Most lab mice are small and white, but even among such a uniform population, occasionally you'll get a spotted one, or a brown one, or a big one. It happens. The larger a population is, and the more successful it is within its evolutionary niche, the greater will be its apparent genetic diversity, because more "odd" members of the species are able to survive. For example, if you let all the lab mice out into a field with no predators and ample food, scientists would no longer be able to cull the odd mice from the reproductive pool. The mice would reproduce at a frantic rate. You would get more brown ones. A brown one might mate with a big one, and soon you'd have big brown ones. And so forth.
Here's a quick question to make sure you're been paying attention: What increases population diversity?*
Here's another quick question, just to think about: What eats pigeons?**
Okay, feeling smart? What eats pigeons faster than they can reproduce?***
So, yes, there is considerable genetic diversity among the pigeons at the Malden Center T. There are your usual gray ones, of course. But there are also brown ones, and black ones, and even a brown one with rosy-colored wings. I am serious. One day, on my way home, I even saw something that I'm just going to go ahead here and call a "Clydesdale pigeon:" a pigeon whose legfeathers, like the hair of a Clydesdale horse, extended down its legs and fluffed around its feet.
Do not underestimate the visual impact of this sort of thing. It was, frankly, horrifying. It was wrong. It was nature perverted, more gruesome and visceral than a three-legged dog or even a three-headed chicken. And it was alive, and well, and eating Wonderbread. The extra feathers made it look - bulkier, somehow. Stronger. More aggressive. It strutted and preened, like a furry-footed eagle, secure in its freakish strength. I do not think it is my imagination that made the Clydesdale pigeon stronger and larger than all of its friends.
But, as it will, time passed. I commuted happily into and out of Boston proper, and it was very cold, and I kept my eyes on my feet and my hat smashed down on my head, and I saw no more Clydesdale pigeons. I forgot about them. Then, yesterday, I was walking to the station-side Dunkin' Donuts for a much-needed black coffee, and I saw another one. A different one.
This morning? That's right. A third.
Pigeons in my small suburban enclave are now so successful, so genetically diverse, that they have furry feet. If they have furry feet, what else do they have?
Willing human slaves? I've seen them.
Underground bunkers? Where do you think they go at night?
They are waiting. They are biding their time. Remember me, cold unfeeling universe, as the seething Darwinian tide of pigeons at my train station debates whether or not to get cable or FiOS when they move into my home.
Remember me, O readers.
We do not have long.
* Answer 1:
While many factors influence population diversity, one guarantor of it is successful reproduction.
** Answer 2:
Adventurous suburban cats and medieval noblemen. Number of adventurous cats in my neighborhood (estimate): 2. Number of medieval noblemen (estimate): 0.
***Answer 3:
NOTHING.
I know this because of the pigeons on my commute.
Bah, you say. Don't be neurotic, you say. There are pigeons in every major city in the world, you say. But I invite you to stop right there, and consider what you just said. That's right. They're in every major city in the world. They are everywhere. They can survive on anything - breadcrumbs, wrapper-ends, bits of twisted wire, human scorn. They've already begun takeover of the political and artistic centers of the world (Piazza San Marco, Venice - Trafalgar Square, London - United Nations Building, New York) - and they're on their way to bigger and better things.
In my small town, just north of the busy metropolis of Boston, there is a flock of at least fifty pigeons. I could tell you that they live near the Malden Center Train Station, but "live" is too generous, too innocuous a term. They hover. They lurk. They bide.
They have disciples - usually older women, traveling singly or with a friend, who feed them bread. On one particularly memorable occasion I saw two Chinese women in their forties, of identical height,wearing identical jackets, standing side-by-side on the chilly narrow sidewalk and hurling stale Wonderbread at the biding pigeons, their hands moving like automatons beneath their vacantly smiling faces. I am serious. This really happened.
But, believe it or not, none of this is what actually has me worried. I knew all of this, and accepted it, and was fine. That was before I started looking at their feet.
Hear me out, here.
In any population, even of seemingly identical individuals (think lab mice), there is bound to be some genetic diversity. Most lab mice are small and white, but even among such a uniform population, occasionally you'll get a spotted one, or a brown one, or a big one. It happens. The larger a population is, and the more successful it is within its evolutionary niche, the greater will be its apparent genetic diversity, because more "odd" members of the species are able to survive. For example, if you let all the lab mice out into a field with no predators and ample food, scientists would no longer be able to cull the odd mice from the reproductive pool. The mice would reproduce at a frantic rate. You would get more brown ones. A brown one might mate with a big one, and soon you'd have big brown ones. And so forth.
Here's a quick question to make sure you're been paying attention: What increases population diversity?*
Here's another quick question, just to think about: What eats pigeons?**
Okay, feeling smart? What eats pigeons faster than they can reproduce?***
So, yes, there is considerable genetic diversity among the pigeons at the Malden Center T. There are your usual gray ones, of course. But there are also brown ones, and black ones, and even a brown one with rosy-colored wings. I am serious. One day, on my way home, I even saw something that I'm just going to go ahead here and call a "Clydesdale pigeon:" a pigeon whose legfeathers, like the hair of a Clydesdale horse, extended down its legs and fluffed around its feet.
Do not underestimate the visual impact of this sort of thing. It was, frankly, horrifying. It was wrong. It was nature perverted, more gruesome and visceral than a three-legged dog or even a three-headed chicken. And it was alive, and well, and eating Wonderbread. The extra feathers made it look - bulkier, somehow. Stronger. More aggressive. It strutted and preened, like a furry-footed eagle, secure in its freakish strength. I do not think it is my imagination that made the Clydesdale pigeon stronger and larger than all of its friends.
But, as it will, time passed. I commuted happily into and out of Boston proper, and it was very cold, and I kept my eyes on my feet and my hat smashed down on my head, and I saw no more Clydesdale pigeons. I forgot about them. Then, yesterday, I was walking to the station-side Dunkin' Donuts for a much-needed black coffee, and I saw another one. A different one.
This morning? That's right. A third.
Pigeons in my small suburban enclave are now so successful, so genetically diverse, that they have furry feet. If they have furry feet, what else do they have?
Willing human slaves? I've seen them.
Underground bunkers? Where do you think they go at night?
They are waiting. They are biding their time. Remember me, cold unfeeling universe, as the seething Darwinian tide of pigeons at my train station debates whether or not to get cable or FiOS when they move into my home.
Remember me, O readers.
We do not have long.
* Answer 1:
While many factors influence population diversity, one guarantor of it is successful reproduction.
** Answer 2:
Adventurous suburban cats and medieval noblemen. Number of adventurous cats in my neighborhood (estimate): 2. Number of medieval noblemen (estimate): 0.
***Answer 3:
NOTHING.