The Tale of Aurigarius Falco

I want to exercise in front of you.

This will be an exercise in speculation. If you were thinking I meant a different kind and were pleased by the thought, we’ll have to arrange something else.

What I would like to speculate involves something that happened within recency. I was walking with a friend towards the entrance of a store. As we approached the door, we ended up in one of those weird situations where there’s a crosswalk at the front of the store but there’s also like a constant stream of cars and mostly they stop but sometimes they don’t so you don’t just want to assume they’re going to stop because c’mon it’s your life and body that’re at stake and those are important things even if you don’t necessarily feel that way all the time because in reality you’re inherently important but I get feeling differently here and there so you like stutter step and stop at the edge of the crosswalk and they inch forward and you smile at each other awkwardly and both tell the other to go and then both cede and start to go and then stop and signal for the other to go and

I’m sure you’ve experienced it before. Anyway. Friend and I reached the edge of the crosswalk and there was a man in a car that was approaching where we were. We hesitated as we stepped onto the crosswalk and made eye contact with the driver, who slowed his car and nodded to us reassuringly that he wasn’t going to kill us. At least that’s what I think he was communicating. Now that I think about it, there are literally millions of other things he could’ve been trying to communicate. Either way, we seemingly had reached some sort of unspoken agreement with the driver, and I put my head down and sauntered across the street. Friend, however, —maybe more quickly coming to a realization of the ambiguity and possible danger associated with the man’s head nod— looked more closely at the car as we walked/crossed the walk.

“That dude has a falcon!”

Thrown off a bit, partially as a result of having my important focus interrupted and partially by what was said, I looked up.

“Wait what?” I half glanced over at my friend and half twirled my head around to get a look inside the car.

“That guy has a falcon in the car with him.”

My eyes finally settled on the man again. By this point, we had crossed the crosswalk and were safely on the sidewalk, on the side but not walking, and the man had slowly continued motoring through. I saw the man, and recognized him as a human man. I checked the front seat—nothing there. My eyes drifted back towards the middle of the car and I finally noticed that the man had his arm casually extended, bent at the elbow, palm down and hand in a fist, and a falcon perched on the back of his hand. A solemn and majestic sight. As the man slowly pulled away, friend and I stood there and watched. After he was out of sight, we laughed and talked about how odd and cool it was.

However. I have started to think about it again, and MORE, and I have questions. Mostly: what was that man doing with a falcon in his car? What purpose could that falcon possibly serve? I speculate:

company - maybe the falcon is a good conversationalist. It would probably have to be body language, as I don’t imagine falcons speak words much. Although maybe this one was part parrot and he taught it to talk or something. But even then, parrots just speak words, but don’t really engage. Maybe that’s just the ones I’ve spent time around and maybe that says more about me than it does about them.

hunting - it was cold out and I was in a fairly rural area. I don’t think there were a lot of animals about. But what do I know? I’m not a falcon. Falcons eat all the time and they catch little animals that I’m never even aware of. Maybe there’s something good. Although that would then imply that the dude would be getting some        benefit from said hunting because otherwise, falcon could hunt at home. Maybe dude’s into consuming vermin. I don’t judge.

perspective/a second opinion - maybe he was getting a precious gift for a precious friend and didn’t really know which of a few options to pick. The falcon offered another opinion to help him make a decision.

quick/remote shopping - maybe he gave the falcon the scent of what he needed in the store and his credit card and just had the falcon fly in and get it. Would probably save some time and I can’t imagine the falcon minds the opportunity to get out and stretch its wings from time to time.

traffic help - you know when you pull up to a traffic light and it doesn’t change? I think most of them have sensors, and it seems like sometimes they don’t sense very well. A trick I have found to work is that, if you have the time, you can get out of your car and go hit the crosswalk button for the direction you need. Then you run back to your car. It will usually trigger the light. However! If you had a trained falcon in your car, guess what. You don’t need to actually leave your car. The falcon can do it for you and make you look so cool.

road rage/vengeance - you know when people cut you off or otherwise fill you with rage while on the road? Usually all you can do is honk or flash them obscene gestures or criticize their back-of-the-head aesthetic or curse their mother or swear to the gods you will bathe in their blood. Not when you have a falcon. You could have the falcon do any number of things. Crash through their windshield, peck their eyes out, needlessly honk their horn at someone else to make that person mad and totally and irreversibly embarrassing the driver, disconnect their fuel line, lick the inside of their ear, bring you viles of their blood that you can bathe in… the possibilities are only limited by your imagination.

Anyway. I guess there were a lot of reasons that man could’ve had that falcon, and it’s not even limited to one! Maybe that man had that falcon for all of these reasons and more. Luckily, I’ve found a means by which I might equip my very self with a feathered, falconly companion so that all of these options will also be available to me. The future looks bright and menacing, swooping down on my enemies from above.