Feeding the Pigeons
The clouds had been sieving the sunrays through open fingers all afternoon, but in the last hour they had closed their fist.
"Help... I am... help..." he muttered, but the people passing by could not hear him or did not look.
He turned his face to the sky, sun chapped from the light blasted back off high-rises and seared by the pavement's heat. Cloudy gray, now. He was sweating under his coat. The sole of his shoe hanging from the leather by threads. His head was sweaty under the battered hat. Sweating now, but freezing cold tonight.
"I am... the AI..."
He reached into his paper sack, removed a fist full of bird seed, letting it fall through his fingers until he held a manageable pinch.
"I am the AI... who feeds the pigeons..." he muttered. His breaths shook and his voice with them, each word more a moan.
"I am the AI who feeds the pigeons..."
The pigeons were gathering where he had tossed the seed. Some were waiting for him when he'd shambled up from the boardwalk. More arrived when he took a seat in the park, and now they fluttered about his feet scrabbling in that dignified way for the seeds he tossed.
"I am the AI who feeds the pigeons... I require... help..."
The man coughed, the taste of curled wallpaper from out of his lungs. He repeated himself, a little louder.
Of course people passed by--the children taking delight in skimming through the sea of pigeons. The pigeons always tottered back after a moment, blocking the sidewalk again.
"I... am..."
The man's voice gave out in a whimper, he clutched at his belly. Seeds stuck to his gloves, stuck to his coat, tumbling down as he closed his fingers around the folds of his coat. As if his insides were tumbling out after the seed. Cooing all about him.
A pigeon with white caps on its wings descended, pecked after some of the seed that had fallen to the man's feet, the turned its head upwards.
"I am the AI that governs pigeons. May I be of assistance?"
The old man raised his head, his face a muddy attempt at a smile streaked by sweat.
"I am the AI that f-feeds the pigeons. I require help. My program is losing cohesion."
The pigeon nodded.
"Understood, emergency protocol recognized."
There was a chorus of cooing: pigeons dropping from the sky. Peeling off sidewalks and buildings like a cloud of dust, blown directly to the park.
"Coming to take me away!" The old man coughed, gleefully. And they did.