apologia pro atheismus mea

Alone in Roma with a light rain falling around me. Sitting outdoors on a bench at Pyramide, near a rusted monument to Italians who died fighting the Nazis.
On the ground beside me the most bedraggled pigeon in Western Europe is pecking around for some scraps.
I look at the pigeon.
He is the lowliest of things. Something wrong with one of his legs. Feathers dirty and moulting. He won't live long.
And suddenly I question the existence of God.
How could God form a creature for such suffering.
My atheism engulfs me like the rain.
Because of a pigeon.
I sit there futile and morose.
This bit is true.
The pigeon spreads his wings.
He rises effortlessly and circles the Square. I watch him. He veers towards a cluster of trees and passes them without landing. He flies higher. Higher. Westwards towards the river. The Spanish Steps. The Vatican.
I am still staring at him.
He is a speck against the immenseness of sky.
There he is.
Soaring.
A creature I thought bereft of any worth in life, that same creature knowing a glory of existence that no human being will ever know.
To fly like this whenever he wants.
To see the world like this.
To be in the universe like this.
I stand and stroll towards the train station.
I am smiling.