My chivalry, however half-assed it was, had been thrown down and stomped upon as Ripley stepped in front of me and stood among the birds, embarrassingly giggling like one of the pigeons whispered in her ear the pigeon-equivalent of that one fucked up joke about the eagle, the leper and the 10-pound ham.
"Seeeee?" she said, very sarcastically. "They are just here to play with us. They're beautifuuuuul."
Playing or not, it didn't seem right.
Not that pigeons have the same unpredictability as rottweilers, but anything in enough numbers can do some damage. Even birds. So I was hesitant, and wanted more than anything to pull Ripley away, but to do so may startle them, and I would hate to be responsible for Sandy's daughter being pecked to death by severely scarred, telepathic zombirds. So I watched as she twirled around. More and more birds showed up, some so haggard looking you could practically SEE the loose soil from whatever pet cemetery they were buried in still clinging to their moist, decaying feathers, further cementing my theory that these were, in fact, previously dead birds. One of the birds, the biggest one with the least amount of feathers still intact, had no beak at all, but was somehow clutching a small piece of wet meat in its mouth. Its face, minus the beak, was void of any sheen other than the reflection in its only open eye, and resembled a small sock puppet crudely forged from dried up chicken skin. And yet it too began frolicking in mid air around Ripley, among the rest of the rather graceful sky-dancing scavengers.
The scenario I was witnessing had somehow, right in front of my face, morphed from an impending horror-movie scene to something completely opposite. Something…aesthetically beautiful. Ripley was smiling (she had quite a beautiful smile, as she incredibly lost all of her baby teeth before she was 2, and had a full set of perfect teeth, unscathed by the years of junk food and neglect that most of us share), pirouetting like a ballerina amongst over a hundred birds, circling her with an elegance I had never before seen in a pigeon, let alone a rotting, mangled pigeon. Feathers that had lost their grip on the skin of the birds were floating around in the cyclone. The act had made me wish that the human body was equipped with a slow-motion option in the eyes, so we could experience times like this cinematically, as they were no doubt meant to be experienced. I like to pretend that songs are playing when I am witnessing something worthy of a soundtrack. In my head, Al Jolson's "Sonny Boy" was playing as the birds were circling in my apartment:

"When there are grey skies I don't mind the grey skies.
You make them blue, Sonny Boy.
Friends may forsake me, let them all forsake me.
You pull me thru, Sonny Boy.
You're sent from heaven and I know your worth.
You made a heaven for me right here on the earth.
When I'm old and grey, dear, promise you won't stray, dear,
for I love you, Sonny Boy.

I was in a trance, so much so that I completely forgot about the fucking dangerous living cardboard that I had been cradling against my chest with my left hand. But I guess the box got jealous, because it decided to remind me it was there.
I noticed the box heating up in my arms back when I was ready to pounce on whoever was supposedly in the closet. I hadn't noticed it getting any warmer since then, but perhaps its jealousy inflamed it's surface because I instantly felt like I was holding a raging campfire. I couldn't grip it any longer.
The box fell to the floor, and, like before, must have magically changed mass mid-fall because it hit the ground like a cartoon safe in a failed attempt to murder a road runner, breaking through the first layer of wood and carpet, embedding itself in my rug. There goes my security deposit. Rad.
The box hit the ground with so much force my apartment shook. The framed picture I have of 2 zebras (I won it at a local fair, it's the only thing I have ever won) fell instantly. The television moved a few inches, and a stack of journals on my desk tumbled to the ground.
So did Ripley.
The box's fall had interrupted her dance, and she tumbled sideways to the ground, nearly hitting her head on the corner of the couch. Her fall had startled the birds, which were now frantically diving, chirping and crisscrossing throughout the room, mimicking old archival footage of dogfights from Pearl Harbor. I put my guard up to block any rogue beaks or talons. I kneeled down and covered Ripley so she too would be safe.
The pigeons were blindly flying in a panic, knocking over everything that didn't weigh over 10 pounds. In the span of about a minute and a half, from the time Ripley showed me the box, to the moment I was playing the role of the shield in Hitchcock's THE BIRDS, the tone had changed from scary, to mesmerizing, to dangerous, to, finally, DEAFENING.
I was trying to think as quickly as I could about what to do.
At that moment, however, the box showed me that it has more emotions than just plain jealousy, and it let out a second high pitched scream, exactly like the Siren Song I had heard in the shower, that seemed to last forever. I don't recall exactly how long the noise polluted the air, but it was long enough to drive every pigeon out of the room through the destroyed and bloodied window.

I sat on the floor, protective of Ripley, staring at the box embedded in my floor, now wondering if the box is here...to HELP me…