Sebastian Onciu
A visit to a vivarium in Romanian city has given me the chance to admire from a close range a variety of species of reptiles, fish, and birds. În the latter category a special place was occupied by a room in which I could admire an impressive diversity of pigeons brought from all over the world. The view of so many lovely birds of different colors, mostly white, black and brown, living, cooing and flying as much as the confined space allowed them was certainly a relaxing and delightful one for me at that time as I spent a few good minutes of my short trip to that vivarium observing them.
Now when I look back at that day and make a parallel with the current situation we all have to adapt to I find some similarities between the condition of many humans today and the one of pigeons. When you live in a block of flats and you have to stay at home day after day, you probably feel like a pigeon in a cage. The warm rays of the spring sun are tempting you to get out of your little flat, just like those pigeons need to fly out of the confined space in which they are crammed, but you know that you must obey the rules unless you want to suffer the consequences, therefore you must limit yourself to a small walk up to the nearest shop and then you have no other choice but to go back to your cage. You’re basically a pigeon trapped in a comfortable, but still small space: you have wings, but you can’t enjoy the freedom of flying as far as you like.
Luckily for us, humans, this state of lockdown is just temporary; sooner or later we’ll be free again if we act wisely and we obey the rules. Unlike us, those pigeons I watched at the vivarium will probably never be free. We’ll be able to spread our wings and try to fly again as hard as our abilities and sometimes fate will allow us to, but they won’t because we won’t allow them to, so we have to make their captivity easier by taking well care of them.
