I took a long time making breakfast and had just got everything ready when I realised I’d forgotten something, I don’t remember what, and went back to the bedroom. I couldn’t help glancing out of the window at the sunny evening and, my God, what do I see but the necrophiliac male pigeon back for more. This time he was less frantic, though still confused and hesitant. He walked around the corpse, walked over the top of it, stamped on it; all more sedately than before, but the ritual was the same. Then he climbed down from the dead pigeon and stood to one side of it. He pecked among the feathers on his chest, and then pecked at the feathers of the corpse, probably on its wing, which is still lying outstretched. A small white feather appeared in the live pigeon’s beak. The operation was repeated various times. For a second I thought maybe he’d started eating the corpse, but then I realised that wasn’t what was going on, or at least it didn’t seem to be. Another little white feather appeared in his beak. Then, I don’t know in what order, he walked around the body, stood on top of it, strode around a bit more up there and then got back down and stood next to it again. In the meantime, another, considerably bigger and more aggressive male pigeon arrived, whiter and with iridescent blue-green feathers around its neck (a kind of pigeon that for some reason I dislike more than all the others), and began its own courtship dance. The previous suitor beat a hasty retreat. The new male was left in charge of the situation, but he wasn’t interested in the corpse; the object of his desire was clearly the other male pigeon, if he really was a male pigeon, because by this point in proceedings I’d stopped understanding or trying to understand or believing I understood what was happening. The supposed male took a few turns around the roof and left. I went to have my breakfast, feeling a little queasy.