Guano Out of Luck

So this man, right, he just comes out of nowhere – I definitely didn’t see him – and just walks up to her, you know, the old lady, and tells her to stop, you’re not allowed to do that, can’t you see the signs, even though, like, how long has she been feeding us for?

And so the old lady stops, just like that, she’s polite, she’s always nice to us, and looks up at him and asks him to repeat what he said, I’m hard of hearing. So he tells her again just like before to stop, there are signs like everywhere, can’t you read them, they are big enough even for you to see. And she says: oh, sorry, as if it was her doing something wrong, which she might’ve been, but that still doesn’t excuse that ‘even for you’, does it?

I mean, she’s old but she’s not that old. She knows where we are when she sits down, knows where to put each bit of bread and knows who to kick away for being greedy, because, let’s face it, sometimes we deserve a little kick and, anyway, she never makes much contact.

Anyway, this man, he tells her to stop and is, well, shitty to her, and yet she’s the one saying she’s sorry, she didn’t mean to make a mistake, I’ve been coming to this bench for years to feed the pigeons and no one said anything before.

To which the guy says, well, they should’ve done, all aggressive like, because – and get this – we’re vermin, rats of the sky, we ruin the park, you can’t feed them and you can’t feed the ducks either, they crap everywhere, now stop before I take that loaf off you, as if she’d been sneaking little bits to us on the sly while they were talking, which she wasn’t.

So he waits and she looks up at him and he eyes her and, like, really slowly and firmly, like he’s talking to a child or a dog, says: In. The. Bag, like as soon as he’s gone she’ll start up again, which she might do, she’d nearly finished the loaf by that point.

But he doesn’t move. He just, like, stands over her until the loaf’s in her shopping bag and she’s sitting with her arms and hands in her lap, kind of prim and proper, waiting for what’s next.

Then the guy asks her, not got anywhere to be? And she’s like, no, she’s retired, she’s got nowhere to be, except maybe here, she always comes here to say hello to the pigeons and give us some food. And the guy says, well, you’re going to have to find another place to say hello to the pigeons from now on ’cause you can’t do it here, now could I ask you to leave, all polite, as if he’d suddenly remembered some training he’d had about how to treat people, or something like that, so I can get rid of these disgusting things. In our hearing as well, like we had no idea what he was going on about.

So the old lady gets up slowly and mutters something like a well-I-never, have-you-ever-seen-the-like, they don’t do any harm, then begins to shuffle off the way she usually goes, you know, past the tennis courts while this guy stares after her making sure she’s on her way and not coming back, shouting: and if I catch you here again I’ll fine you, mark my words.

It was ridiculous. There’s this lady harming no one, and she’s the one being made to feel like she’s doing something wrong. I mean, what’s she done? Feed us? It’s not as if we eat then go crap on this guy’s head or anything. What’s the problem?

Nothing. And he stopped me eating. I let Mickey take the rest of my portion and just, like, watched the guy, not knowing how this could be happening. Then, as soon as the old lady was out of sight, this guy, he, like, turns on us and starts kicking at us, and not a nice little tap either like the old lady. No. He proper kicks us, getting Davey and Josh right on their wings, then shouts shoo and get, and walks off while I watch kind of dumbfounded, kind of curious to see what is going to happen next.

A few of us flew off in the direction of the old lady, but I didn’t go anywhere. I just couldn’t, I was so angry. You don’t just go around doing something like that and think you can get away with it.

So I wait and wait, but he comes back with a brush, quickly too, and runs right at us and we can’t do anything but fly away, though he caught a couple of us who weren’t quick enough, like Josh, but that’s his own fault for being such a fat git.

Anyway, he comes at us and we fly off, but I’m not finished, even if he thinks it’s finished, not by a long shot, so I fly up onto a tree and just watch him, you know, watch him sweep up all our food and chuck it in the bin – what a waste – then walk back over to some kind of low building.

So I follow him, fly over and sit on the roof by the drains and coo a little, I’ve got nowhere else to be, don’t want to be anywhere else, and wait, no matter how long it takes, trying to think what I can do to get back at him, which I kind of decide on quite quickly, it’s easy really, he hates us and our crap, so I’ll give him exactly what he doesn’t want, make him feel as bad as the old lady felt, that’s what I think.

So I wait and eventually he comes out when it’s a bit darker and heads out of the park to his car and drives off, me following at a, you know, discreet distance, hoping he doesn’t see me, and he doesn’t, I’m too high up, and we keep going like this until he stops outside a house, gets out and goes in while I fly down and into the garden to have a look around.

The lights were on so I flew up onto the windowsill to look in and I see this guy with a woman and they’re laughing, laughing and smiling and joking, as if he hadn’t spoken to the old lady never mind kicked us and told her to never come back.

Then I wait. I know what to do. I don’t care if he hates us more after. I just want to get him and my bowels are beginning to move into position.

I’m ready, I can do this, but they’re not going anywhere, they’re sitting inside having a drink, talking and I’m feeling like I’ve really got to go, will the window do or his car, I could definitely get his car, he must love that. But as soon as I’m thinking that they get up and disappear, and I’m kicking myself thinking I’m going to have to come back the next day, but I don’t because, just then, he opens the door and steps out with this woman, arm in arm, smiling, going out.

So I push myself off the sill and get ready, go up and bank and fly right at them, ready to release. And I do. I go. And I hit them, and I’m all ecstatic and everything. I think of the old lady and those kicks and swirl through the night sky and do a loop-the-loop.

It’s perfect. I feel great and land on a tree nearby to see the look on his face, thinking he’ll look just like the old lady, the bastard, just like her, but they’re not crying, not at all. They’re laughing. They’re hugging each other and the guy’s saying, you got crapped on, excellent, how lucky are you, really, how lucky are you? I mean, shit. ِAnd I can’t do anything about it because I’ve got nothing else to give Nothing at all.

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