Stationary Drill

A heavy gray pigeon touched down on the perforated metal bench, two feet from my position. The wing-beats sounded like a muffled drum. I locked my frame stationary against the vertical steel stanchion. Rifle clamped tight against my chest harness. Zero muscle twitch. The avian target conducted rapid, erratic head bobs, sweeping sixty-degree arcs across the bench tier. It pecked twice at a dried salt grain inches from my left boot, then paused, its dark eye aligning with my shoulder seam. I held zero respiration count. Forty seconds elapsed. The bird turned, satisfied, and launched toward the gutter curb. Unseen. Position uncompromised.