In the morning yesterday got an Uber and drove up and down narrow winding roads wrapped along the hills of Yangmingshan, with views over Taipei to one side and green hillsides to the other. There were trees in early bloom along the way, sakura and rhododendron, and wildflowers on grassy bits. We were behind a motorcycle for some distance, and then one of us noticed that there seemed to be a bird seated on the handlebar. As I glanced toward it, the man lifted his hand from the handlebar and the bird – it was a pigeon – took flight, but instead of flying away, began flying low, next to the motorcycle, matching its speed. We watched in amazement as flew alongside the man, as though tied by a string. Every now and then he’d turn a corner and disappear for a moment, but when he came back into view the pigeon would still be there, flying alongside him. We passed a couple of elderly walkers on the road, they turned, staring to watch the man and his pigeon, their jaws dropped in shock. At last it seemed to flag, to have to work harder to keep up. They turned a corner and when we caught up the pigeon was on the road (the driver swerved to avoid running it over), and running anxiously to catch up with the motorcycle. The motorcycle screeched into a turn and he returned, presumably to retrieve the bird.
It was probably just a pigeon fancier, nothing that startling, but it was like nothing so much as a character from Phillip Pullman with his daemon tied to him by an invisible string.