Modern Fable in Billings, Montana

This is a replica of the wire where a mourning dove landed.

Once upon a time a mourning dove landed on a wire above the alley behind a house. It was the house of the angry woman across the street who played the flute for the town symphony orchestra. This made the angry woman even angrier. Get off the wire, she thought. I wish you would fall off the wire, she thought.
The dove did not fall off the wire. They never do. Instead he called in his mournful way, “coo coo coo.”
The woman didn’t know what to do about the dove that she disliked so much. She tried twisting tissues and jamming them into her ears. Mostly she couldn’t hear the dove, but she couldn’t practice the flute, either. She depended on her ears to get the cues for playing with the symphony. Well, with recordings of the symphony, so she could play along. Actually, she did just fine with or without the tissues. It’s just that she got so angry her blood pressure increased. Okay, she had low blood pressure. She even fainted once when she became dehydrated. Not because of anything the dove did.
She didn’t even hate the doves very much. Her dogs barked at them. No, they didn’t. Come to think of it, she didn’t even feel that strongly against them. She did, however, have low blood pressure that one time.