Thursday Afternoons: A Micro-Story

 Every Thursday afternoon, an old man feeds pigeons. He sits on a bench by a public fountain, bread crumbs in hand. “Here you go my little friends,” he says as he pitches bread crumbs to them. Around 5 pm, he gets up and goes home, usually his stock of bread crumbs being depleted.

One day, a little boy comes and sits next to him. “Can I have some bread crumbs and feed them too,” the boy says. So, the man gives him some bread crumbs as they sit silently together. Pretty soon, the boy’s mother comes looking for the boy. “What have I told you about strangers?” she says. “The man was only helping me feed the birds,” says the boy. “Come along,” says the mother. The boy says goodbye to the man and leaves with his mother.

The very next Thursday, the man sees the little boy across the public space. The little boy has his own bread crumbs and is feeding pigeons. The man is taken aback by this. This was his spot to feed pigeons. These pigeons were his pigeons. What to do about it? The man thinks and shrugs. It is only one little boy, after all. What harm is there in it? The pigeons will be twice as full.

Another Thursday, and what does the old man see? It is the boy again, and this time he has a friend. The man accepts that he can tolerate one little boy feeding his pigeons - but two? This takes things to a new level. The man thinks and thinks, but he just can’t figure out what to do about it. After all, they are just children. He decides again it is best to ignore them. After all, he has his section of the public space, and they have theirs.

Another Thursday comes, and the man notices that all the pigeons are flocking to the little boys area of the public space. “What are they feeding them,” he wonders out loud. Again, the man thinks, but can find no action to take. The boys have as much right as he does to feed pigeons. So, the man gives up and goes home early. “Perhaps, a good dinner will sort things out,” he says.

Later that evening, while eating dinner, he realizes there was something strange about the bread crumbs the boys were feeding his pigeons. “Something is a bit off,” he says out loud. “I wonder what the boys were feeding my pigeons?” He didn’t always talk to himself at the dinner table, but this was particularly troubling to him.

That night, he dreams. He dreams about the boys, and how the pigeons are drawn to them instead of him. He dreams that there must be something sinister going on. He dreams that the boys are giving the birds something other than bread crumbs.

The next Thursday afternoon, when he arrives at the public space, he notices that all the pigeons are gone. The boys are not around. He starts to cry. Then, he packs up his bread crumbs and goes home