Wonder - Flash Fiction
He was in the park, laughing and throwing seed to birds. Pigeons swaggered awkwardly around him like old men hanging out on corners. Two stroller-pushers - mothers or nannies - swerved wide with mild alarm, as if the inappropriate happiness of this old man on the bench might harm their babies. "Bread swells in their craws," he said, looking up at me,"and will kill them. Rice, too. That's why people throw bird-seed at weddings." Willard held up the small paper sack to me, but I declined. He pulled more seed from it and broadcast wide; pigeons ambled forward, pecking and deliberating. He had endless obscure facts, and I wanted to sit and listen to all of them. This time, though, the little man in his practical suit who sat in the park every day had little to say. He just smiled with childlike wonder, admiring the birds as if they were a committee he was orchestrating or an orchestra he was conducting. He'd look up at me from time to time, knowing ...