Charles and his pigeons

It was the year 1837. Charles woke up with the sound of ding-ding. He knew what that was, the pigeons had arrived, at least one of them. He slipped into his robe and slippers and almost jumped the stairs leading him to the yard. He scanned the pigeon holes. About 40 of them in all. Each pigeon hole was meticulously labelled and cleaned overnight to welcome the visitors. Only two of the holes seem to be occupied.

Source

Charles peered into the first pigeon hole which had a pigeon inside. It was the one labelled, Mark.

“Wonderful, Mark!” exclaimed Charles.

Charles reached into the hole and extracted the bird. He looked at the pink feet. Tied to the feet was a scroll of paper.

“Oh Mark! You are the kindest,” said Charles, while opening the scroll.

“LOL” read the message.

“What is this? This is all he had to say?” said Charles, while crumpling the note. He threw the note to the ground.

He walked up to the next pigeon. The label read “Anton”.

The scroll from Anton’s pigeon had a picture on it.

A thumbs up.

One more crumpled note on the floor.

“What do these notes mean? Philistines!”

Charles looked around. He picked up the notes and scribbled something on each of them. Tying the messages to the respective pigeons, he let them go. The pigeons fluttered and disappeared in the blue Hampshire sky.

He walked upstairs to his study.

His desk lay there with a bunch of papers and books. He gazed at the open notebook with the words “Mr. Augustus Minns was a bachelor.”

Wielding his quill as if it were a sword, Charles sat at his desk and started to write.

Ding-ding

“Blasted pigeons! Whose is it now?”

Charles barrelled down to the yard and looked around.

Agatha.

A few more pigeons flew into their homes as he was unwrapping Agatha’s message.

Ding-ding

Ding-ding

Good morning! Hope the morning is as bright as the flowers in your garden.💐🌹🌹💐

He went through the other pigeon holes.

“You forgot my birthday. -signed Mark”

“I hope you go to prison. -signed Anton”

Charles stomped back into his lair again.

He put pen to paper and…

Ding ding

“I am done with the lot. They are all pompous, self-righteous, jobless suckers. I am going to bury myself in my writing.”

Ding ding

Ding ding

“Oh blimey!” said Charles, while walking down to his yard.

“On sale” “Writers wanted” “I have a secret word” “Pay your blasted rent”

“CATHY, THROW THIS BELL AWAY, remove these blasted pigeon holes. I don’t want to be disturbed,” yelled Charles.

A dove flew with a printed embossed document and dropped it near Charles. He caught it and read it.

“Dear Mr. Dickens, we love your first three chapters and would like to publish your story. Please send us the finished manuscript within 90 days. - Monthly Magazine”

Charles looked up at the dove and smiled.

“Cathy, my love, put the pigeon bell back on every day at 2pm, will ya?”

Source

Note- Some of the facts from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Dickens were used for this imaginary short story.