The Seagull

The rain had cleared just enough for me to brave having my lunch outdoors. As I idly ate my fish and chips I watched the pigeons that had gathered around me run away from the imposing figure of the seagull who had strutted into view to see what the fuss was all about. It was the daddy of all seagulls, he walked like a nightclub bouncer and had a similar arrogant attitude. He swaggered around the bench I was sitting on eyeing my bag of chips waiting for me to drop one or the lot so he could finally have his lunch. I wondered how he had got so big? I’m sure seagulls were not that size when I was little. Maybe it was the diet of chips and sausage-in-batter and other discarded junk food from the streets of Cardiff. I wondered to myself as I ate the chips if seagulls could suffer from cholesterol problems, if they had an obesity epidemic of their own. I imagined seagulls falling from the sky after suffering heart attacks mid flight. I could see the seagull was getting bored, it wasn’t gonna get any of my chips so it flew away grumpily lifting his hefty body off the ground with his vast wings.  I smiled, I’d won the battle, survived the intimidation routine.

But then from nowhere the seagull was back, it swooped down towards me a blur of white and grey and snatched the chips from my hand in a flash before flying away. It was so fast it took me a moment or two to realise what had happened. I sat there like an idiot my hands still holding a now imaginary bag of chips while the seagull had taken the real ones up to a rooftop and was  enjoying the sweet taste of victory as well as the vinegary taste of my lunch.