COLUMBA / TRANSMISSION 06

The department of plausible wildlife

A tiny pigeon stands beside invoice stacks in an enormous records hall.FILM FORTHCOMING / SOURCE FILE AVAILABLE

TRANSMISSION TEXT / 06

Four invoices.

Ask who owns the pigeons. Wildlife sends you to Streets. Streets sends you to Procurement. Procurement asks for a contract number. The number describes environmental continuity, not pigeons. Four contractors maintain four ordinary pieces of an extraordinary operation. One supplies the exterior. One maintains the depots. One cleans the square. One certifies availability. Most employees do not need the whole secret. They need a task list and an accepted invoice. Public money pays for a convincing flock. A second customer pays for the observations the flock makes possible. A third pays for something called protected non-observation. That last line is not a repair. A broken sensor creates a fault. This creates a fee.