Timothy Leader keeps sacks of breadcrumbs in his pockets
and bags. He never leaves home without them. And that’s because he’s one of
those people you see, who often wear threadbare coats and weird shoes, hanging
around the public squares in your city, feeding pigeons.
It’s a singular kind of person that decides to go down
the route of public pigeon feeding. They are generally extremely thoughtful and
honest individuals; the kind of person with whom most right-thinking people
would happily share a scotch egg and half an ale of a Thursday and/or
Wednesday afternoon in summer. Public pigeon feeders (PPFs) are also usually
among society’s most stable characters. It’s a little known fact that a
staggering 67 point three % of them are almost entirely debt free.
These ‘average’ PPFs, however, do not represent Timothy.
He is an entirely different – some would say maverick – breed of PPF. For
starters he operates, in net weight terms, with an 4:1 breadcrumb to seed
ratio. Timothy goes to the trouble of weighing out a selection of poppy,
pumpkin and sesame seeds and expertly blending them with the breadcrumbs,
simply because that’s his vibe. He can’t really be sure the pigeons notice. But
he’s seen other PPFs furtively glancing at his product from time to time
(though the less said about that the better).
Timothy Leader does not only differ from your run of the
mill pigeon feeder in relation to the composite mixture of his feed though. He
is taller, and significantly richer, than most of the others too. He works in a
bank, where he has got a secretary, and he shoulders the burden of immensely
stressful decisions. Sometimes it’s like make or break, and megadeals. Your
average PPF lacks the mental strength to handle such intense pressure.
Ironically, it’s questionable whether Timothy would be
able to handle the pressure himself were it not for his love of feeding the
pigeons. It was after a particularly stressful meeting, which went badly, that
he first threw a few crusty scraps of his mid-range Pret a Manger sandwich
at a group of pigeons. After seeing the selfish glints in those birds’
eyes when they startled to gobble he was hooked, and started feeding them on a daily basis.
All that now remains for me to explain is the incredible
level of hatred Timothy Leader holds for pigeons. He despises their horrible
legs and their stupid faces. Bile rises in his throat when he sees them
scratching around outside his window. He wishes them ill. This is why Timothy
includes secret ingredients called poison and bits of glass in his breadseedfeed mix.
