The Doves, the Nest, and the Woman Who Never Smiles

For months, I watched a small miracle unfold on my back porch in Taiwan.

It began with a familiar cooing of Eurasian Collared Doves, common here but no less beautiful for their ubiquity. Below my apartment, my downstairs neighbor had fashioned a peculiar arrangement for tiny cacti that she had gotten rid of early. A small wire enclosure now looks like a doorless birdcage, tied to the wrought-iron box that houses her air conditioning unit. And there, as if by invitation, a dove had built her nest.

Day after day, I would peer over my porch railing to check on her. She’d look up at me with those beautiful eyes - curious but unafraid, steadfast in her duty as a mother. Her mate would visit, bringing food or simply keeping watch. Even through three weeks of relentless rain that soaked everything, she remained. Nothing could move her from those precious eggs.

Then one morning, silence. I peeked over the railing and looked down. The nest and tiny bird cage were gone. The enclosure was empty, pristine, as if the doves had never existed at all.

At first, I imagined they'd all grown up, and the family dispersed, thriving somewhere in the neighborhood. But doves don’t demolish their own home. They don’t clean up after themselves so thoroughly.

And that brings me to the woman who lives below.

In all my time living here, I’ve never seen her smile. Not once. When we shared an elevator, my greetings met only silence or, at best, a grudging nod. I’ve held doors and received nothing, not even the courtesy of eye contact. That sour expression seems etched permanently into her features, and I’ve long since stopped trying to crack it.

What happened to the doves? Who knows? Only she knows for certain. Perhaps she brought them inside, though nothing about her suggests a secret tenderness for animals. More likely, I fear, she viewed them as pests to be eliminated. The eggs might have met any number of fates; in Taiwan, people eat bird eggs of various species.

I want to believe in kindness. I want to imagine those doves somewhere safe being a family. But when I look at that empty enclosure, I know the world is as harsh as it appears.

Please, leave your thoughts on how this story ended. There’s always a chance that I have missed something.

If this story moved you, you might find meaning in Indifference or Compassion — a series of art prints and t-shirts exploring exactly that question.