Short Story: The Chorus

The babystepping old man with the shuffling gait is in the McDonald’s parking lot every morning hunched over a bit scattering methodically some kind of birdfeed by the curb of the lot’s edge for the pigeons and crows. Looking up from his task momentarily he sees me walking by on the sidewalk by the parking lot. “Buenos Dias,” he says to me with a hillbilly lilt. I wave and say hello and keep walking. Later he’s not there anymore but I see the pigeons alighting in the parking lot where he scatters the feed from his bag. I hear the birds flapping and beating against the air in a chorus of wings behind me once I’m not there anymore too.