Pigeons & Sausage

The pigeons have destroyed the bun.

But they can't make any headway on the sausage, with its tough casing and its trademark curve. It rocks and leaps and spins around from sidewalk to gutter as they peck and peck and peck.

Sometimes as many as ten of the grubby grey birds are going at it, with agitated, muffled cooing in their throats. The sounds escalate to an untoward hooting. Necks are strained. Most of them give up and walk away. A couple of believers carry on a while. Then a mob forms again. Still, the dessicated, dirty sausage writhes, uncompromised.

They can all smell victory; a breakfast to rival the best corn anyone's ever cast before them. If pigeons had saliva (do they?) it would be dragging in globs from their bills. But they just can't tear the casing, taste the spices, can't catch a break.

If one of them gets a foot on it, holds it down, then everybody eats.

It becomes the stuff of pigeon lore, passed down through generations:

The wondrous spark in one bird's brain, a proud, firm stance, chest puffed out, knee bent, gaze fixed on the horizon, talon gripping the ragged meat, the whole family, cousins and cousins once removed, all feasting. The missing link.