Suicidal Lovers

When we first moved into this house, there was a covered porch with a ceiling fan out back. One pleasant early summer day, I turned on the porch's ceiling fan and opened the screen door to the family room. I had the ceiling fan on in the family room, and there was a nice, fresh breeze blowing through the house.

Birds lived in the eaves of the covered porch. A mourning dove flew straight into the ceiling fan, then stagger-flew off into the back yard to die. He left behind his wife and new babies. A few weeks later, they disappeared too.

"Mourning doves mate for life," my father said. "She probably died of a broken heart."

We screened in the porch. Now birds live in the eaves of the car port, where it's nice and safe with no ceiling fans.

This morning I slammed on my brakes and screetched to a halt on Big Bend Rd. to avoid hitting a pair of mourning doves who were apparently waiting patiently for death, there in the middle of the street. I refused to be their vial of poison, their sharp dagger.