Six Shooter

I wonder how many people make it my age. thought Humphrey. It's really amazing that I've made it this far.

He sat on a park bench, surveying the beauty of the city park beneath the fractured city skyline. A bright flare was visible at the edge of his vision; he tightened his sun visor--no need to risk cancer.

Humphrey opened up the bag in his lap, revealing a loaf's worth of stale breadcrumbs. The bakery threw this stuff away, but the delivery boy gave it to Humphrey for free. He tossed some of the bread onto the walkway with his left hand--his right hand was having another bad day.

Just part of old age. he thought, scratching his mostly bald scalp. He waited for the birds to arrive.

Humphrey didn't have to wait for long. A pair of pigeons landed nearby and began to eat the crumbs. Humphrey smiled--these were Old Birds. Two of them at once had to be lucky.

Humphrey heard a scrabbling sound and his smile faded a little. The pigeon he had named Trooper limped up to the crumbs and gorged itself. Humphrey had to hand it to Trooper--most organisms as severely deformed as him didn't last this long. Trooper had two fully formed heads. That his were too scrawny bring him airborn didn't matter--his oversized, almost reptilian eyes were lidless and had dried up into blindness long ago. Humphrey noticed with a frown that the lefthand head was drooping much more than yesterday--it seemed that the world was finally getting the better of Trooper.

Bruiser stomped up as Humphrey through out more bread. Bruiser was a sparrow with a massive glandular disorder that had never let his growth stop. The bird was the size of a small dog and was flightless because of it.

There were much fewer birds than there had been when Humphrey had started feeding them--he'd read that more and more eggs these days had shells like paper, and those that hatched tended to resemble Trooper. Almost all of the birds were hideous, and great numbers were sterile--those that lived through the first few hours, of course.

That crook who ran the country had been making a speech last night, the same speech Humphrey had heard every year he could remember, from every leader he could remember. We were winning the war; in a few short years, victory would be ours and tyranny would be vanquished for good. The public would have to make sacrifices, but we would win the war, and that was what everyone wanted, wasn't it?

At Humphrey's feet, Trooper's sagging lefthand head started to cough. Something orange and bloody came out, and the coughing stopped.

But was that what everyone wanted? Humphrey wanted to feed the birds all year round, but the summers were so hot that people had to stay inside if at all possible. He missed this serene ritual of his, denied him from May to October.

Another flightless creature wandered up to the food. It had a beak, so it was probably a bird, technically speaking. The only think that grew from its pink skin was the occassional sore. Humphrey had never seen this one before. He decided to call it Pinkie.

While he was at it, Humphrey decided he wanted some of his friends back. He'd outlived them all, and now people called him an old timer. He was nearly certain that, in the days before the war, a man of thirty-six would have one or two friends still alive.

Trooper's good head popped up, and he scuttled off.

Whose war was this, anyway? His grandfather's? Great-grandfather's? No one seemed to remember anymore. All Humphrey was certain of was that the war was older than anyone alive. He certainly felt sorry for the birds--their grandfathers hadn't even asked for this war, but they were certainly paying for it.

Humphrey noticed what had scared off Trooper. The two Old Birds flew away as Chomper got close. Chomper was all black, which meant he was probably some kind of crow, but he had no wings, a huge beak (hence his name) and a bad temper. Chomper walked straight up to Pinkie. Pinkie squeaked at Chomper, and Chomper bit Pinkie's head off.

"Get out of here!" Humphrey yelled at Chomper. Chomper cawed, spitting gore from his beak. Humphrey leaned forward and swatted at Chomper with his bad hand, shoving the useless bulge of flesh at the bird. Chomper cawed again and hopped off.

Pinkie's lifeless body lay on the sidewalk, blood oozing from the neck stump, making the bread crumbs soggy. Bruiser looked up at Humphrey quizzically, as if asking if the bread was still safe to eat. It probably wasn't.

Humphrey stood up. He'd finish the bag of bread somewhere else. As he walked away, he heard a faint hoot, and saw Trooper waddling out from beneath the bench. Malformed as he was, Trooper knew how to survive--he ignored the bloody, tainted bread and followed Humphrey. Bruiser lumbered after them.

They found a new park bench and Humphrey sat down. The three of them stayed there all afternoon, even when the air raid sirens began their tiresome song. As the canisters of death fell from above, all three decided their careers as malformed, scarred survivors had gone on long enough.