"Oh please. One drink won't kill you." That's how the e-mail began.

"I have early meetings, we'll only be here a short while." It was eight in the evening and I was still at work. It was a last-minute thing, a quick meet up at a nearby bar. I had sent a noncommittal reply that I was stuck at work for a bit yet, that I was burning the corporate midnight oil.

"Come. Now."

Month-end. I was stressed. That's how dangerous evenings start.

A little after nine o'clock yesterday evening I left my colleagues at the office and headed to meet up with Matt, Byrne and Bob. Once again, I was to have maybe a beer or two, a little chitchat, a quick hello-goodbye-I-can't-stay-too-long. Two hours later, I began making my way back home, images of exposed body parts burned fresh into my brain, wickedly toxic quantities of alcohol taunting my liver.

It's always a great time to be had when hanging out with these boys. I just have to remember next time to bring an extra pair of underwear for the in-plain-audience-view-underwear-exchange that's apparently becoming a standard part of the festivities. It's now twenty-four hours after I left work yesterday, and I'm still here stuck at the office. Month-end, I said. Loads of work to do. Loads of stress to be had by everyone. And enough alcohol still roaming my bloodstream to make me want to pass out anytime now.

Wait, what was that you said? Exposed body parts? Underwear exchange? Don't ask me. I didn't touch nuthin'.

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Ottawa is beautiful. And cold. I've been here since Saturday, holed up in my hotel room with flu-like symptoms now gone almost as mysteriously as they came, dreading to go outside into the -11 degree windchill for anything more than a quick bite to eat. Today, I decided to explore a bit.

I spent most of the day walking about Centretown and then the government buildings, marveling at the mid-nineteenth and early-twentieth century architecture of Parliament Hill. The Parliament buildings are impressive indeed, what with their tall spires and muscular stone walls and the buildings' imposing position at the top of the hill. With their vaulted ceilings, marble floors and solemn senators walking about in formal garb, I felt appallingly underdressed and insignificant, and I tried to make myself as inconspicuous as possible. Then I saw the grotesques.

Littered throughout the buildings' nooks and crannies, there they were: scores and scores of tiny demons and beasts laughing and making faces, all monstrous, all heinous, all spectacularly ugly and delightfully wicked. I laughed. Every time I saw one of the little faces peeking out at me from behind the corners, I laughed.

I took the elevator to the top of the Peace Tower where I joined the dozens of half-frozen tourists admiring the views. One South Asian family walked about in awe, the two young daughters holding notebooks and taking notes off each plaque and sign as they went along. I peered over the shoulder of one as she wrote in careful cursive script. "The tower is 92.2 metres high," she wrote. "52 bells, some over 10,000 kg heavy."

I followed them for a few minutes, watching them dutifully take notes and clutching the various brochures and leaflets they had gathered along the way. Soon the younger daughter turned to her father. "Daddy, I don't want to write about this," she said, pouting. "Why do we need to write about this? It's boring."

The father turned to her. "You should know about these things," he said, his voice gentle and richly accented, a wonderful complement to the dark features of his round face.

"But why? Why do we have to write about this? It's boring."

Her father called her softly by her name, a name that escapes me now, but that played beautifully off his lips. "We live here in this country now," he said. "We need to know about our new home."

***

I smiled as the little girls wandered off, forgetting about their private conversation as I walked around the tiny observation deck. By and by, I came up to them again. They were giggling and pointing. I looked to what they had both written in their notebooks: "Grotesque." Then I glanced up to the corner of the low ceiling and saw the stone figurine of a tiny creature sticking its tongue out at the three of us. I joined the girls in laughing, and they ran off to tell their parents what they had found tucked away in the corner. Before long they had discovered all four of the impish creatures hidden on the observation deck, and they all talked excitedly as they waited in line for the elevator down.

***

I spent the rest of the next couple of hours walking about the buildings and the exhibits there. I sat for a session of parliament, with the senators debating this and that. I talked with a protestor who had been picketing the grounds since 9am, every day that there has been a session for fifteen years. I watched as dignitaries were led on a tour about the buildings, and chatted with the friendly guards.

Everything suddenly seemed a lot less intimidating, everything a little more lighthearted and fun. Perhaps, like the little girls, I had been affected by the strange magic of the roguish grotesques playing hide-and-go-seek from the corners of rooms, peeking from the eaves of the ceilings, lying in wait around the hidden bends and turns. How wonderfully wonderful, the little impish creatures.

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Every morning for the past three weeks or so, I would peek out the bedroom window to the far corner of the tiny landing where the pigeon has set up her nest. She is a young pigeon, a first-time mother perhaps, a cautious parent raising her twin hatchlings at the end of a weary winter.

Every night when I go to bed, I would take the light of the bedside lamp over to the darkened corner and watch the mother staring back at me. She has gotten comfortable with our daily routine, me saying hello and goodbye every morning and night.

Two weeks ago, one of the babies died. The surviving chick seemed unaware of his sibling's death and continued vying for his mother's attention, crying out whenever she returned from a quick forage for food. As he grew bigger, the tiny pile of motionless feathers next to him grew smaller, and I developed an occasional and perplexing resentment towards his selfish will to survive. Every morning, I would hear the gentle flutter of wings that signaled the mother's arrival or departure, along with the soft cry for attention that grew in confidence with each passing day. Yesterday morning before I left for work, I watched and smiled as the chick finally stood up on his own and preened the feathers on his tiny wings. He would soon be strong enough to fly, and I hoped to be there to say a final goodbye.

***

Last night we returned to the apartment after midnight. As was my nightly custom, I brought the bedside light over to the bedroom window, ready to say goodnight to the little family there. I was unprepared for what I was about to see.

The tiny landing where the nest sits lies at the base of my building's steep roof. It's a narrow space, this little landing, about three feet by four feet and walled in on all sides--a perfect sanctuary. The problem is that this sanctuary acts as a basin for runoff; the steep roof funnels into this tiny space. And when it snows like it has been snowing the past few days, the sanctuary becomes avalanche-prone, and snow can come cascading down the narrow chute, flooding the entire area. Which is what happened yesterday.

I shone the light over to the dark landing and stopped abruptly, all too aware that I had gasped aloud. Where there once sat a crude nest now lay a basin of snow eighteen inches deep. The nest and all its contents had been buried.

***

When Greg came into the bedroom, I pointed to the little avalanche. He shook his head and shrugged as nonchalantly as he could, but I knew he was upset. He had bought birdseed a few weeks ago and would feed the parents occasionally, keeping watch over the little family as much as I did. I wasn't the only one who had become attached to our guests. We surveyed the scene. The snow was packed on the surface, and it looked as though the nest had been buried for most of the day. There was no way that anything could have survived. "Let the warmth of spring melt what it may, and we'll visit again when the snow is gone," I said, though the tenor of my voice failed to console either of us. We hugged each other and slipped wordlessly into bed.

Twenty-five minutes later, Greg nudged me. "Hon?" he said.

"Yep?"

"Can't sleep."

"Me too."

"What's on your mind?"

"You know."

"Yeah, me too. Maybe he got away in time."

We got up and turned on the light. "I'm going to see if I can dig through the snow," I said. "Maybe we'll go bury him over by the train tracks."

I put on a pair of boots and a sweatshirt, and using an old tupperware bowl as a spade, I climbed out the window and began digging through the snow. The top of the snow was hard packed, and I tossed the snow over the side of the building as I dug. Fifteen minutes later, we still hadn't found anything, and I began to feel a sense of hope that maybe the baby had indeed somehow escaped. Then, under the giant pile of snow, I saw a bundle of soft gray feathers packed tight under the ice.

I stopped. "I found him," I said quietly, biting down hard on my teeth. "I found the little baby." Greg looked at me and nodded. After a few moments, I bent down slowly to pick up the body. That was when I noticed the small, rhythmic, too-slow breathing. "Oh my god," I said. "Greg, come quick. He's still alive. He's still alive!"

Greg climbed through the window and I rushed back into the apartment to get some towels. He brushed away at the snow and gently lifted the tiny body into the towel-lined container I held out to him. "Oh my god. He's still alive." I quickly put another towel over the bird and rushed the shivering container to the warm spot over the bathroom radiator.

As Greg scoured the internet over the next half hour for tips on feeding and nursing baby pigeons, I stood watch over the bird, his little head peering confused out from under the towels. I almost wept when he finally moved his head and blinked. Soon enough, we transferred him to some fresh towels and a dry cardboard box, and draped another towel over him. We cleaned up and hugged, and crawled exhausted into bed. It was sometime after 3am when I finally fell asleep, running my hand through Greg's hair and weeping quietly with joy to myself.

***

I awoke at six to Greg's voice. "Oh, oh, the parents are here. The parents are here." I opened my eyes and saw Greg rushing for the cardboard box sitting in the corner of the bedroom. He gently opened the window where two very bewildered parents were cooing and calling out to their missing chick. They flew away reluctantly as Greg placed the box out onto the snow. Two hours later, they still hadn't returned.

It was many hours later when I got an e-mail at work from Greg. "They found the baby," he said. "The mother's feeding him now." I grinned and tried to suppress a tear threatening to race down my cheek.

***

I returned home from work tonight to find Greg with a new bag of pigeon seed, even more gigantic than the first, and reading voraciously the various pigeon newsgroups and message boards online. We've just now finished building a fortified roof over the chick in anticipation of the heavy snowfall expected over the next few days. And since neither of us will be in town this weekend and into next week, we're keeping our fingers crossed tight for him.

I've named him Charlie.

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March steals in with the urgency of a gentle wind. The short winter days, once hurrying by at an all too alarming rate, have slowed perceptibly, every morning and evening the sun pushing back steadily the borders of night. This is the time of year where colour begins to seep back into the wardrobes of New Yorkers, slowly displacing the dispassionate monotones of winter flannels and wools.

The weatherman is gleeful these days. Every morning he heralds the arrival of an early spring, promising a prolonged respite from the bitter cold that has held the northeast hostage this year. Nature for once seems to cooperate with him. She herself seems tired of all this ice and frost and snow and slush. She seems ready to wake from slumber and once more nudge her creatures to life.

For the smaller beasts, birth is a harbinger of spring. The pigeon nesting outside my bedroom window, though still wary of my movements within the apartment has grown accustomed to me peering every morning at her and her two chicks barely a week old. She watches me carefully from her residence, unmoving and unblinking until I am safely out of sight. Her husband-pigeon visits during the day, perhaps to bring word of the outside world, perhaps to share a meal. She, along with the few random weeds peeking curiously out from the frozen ground seems to know that the winter is over, that it's time to get busy with the formalities of living.

This is the time of year where people shed their heavy coats in favour of lighter armor. Some run about optimistically on the warmer days, clad only in shorts and tee shirts too fragile to protect against the chilly shadows of Manhattan skyscrapers. They are the crazy ones. They are the ones for whom the winter has been enough. Bring on the warm weather, they seem to say. Enough is enough.

Every morning the sun peeps into my bedroom window just a little bit earlier.

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