Losers

The crows pecked at the birdseed scattered on the ground in front of Harold. Their beaks made a light tick tick tick against the frozen sidewalk. Two of the crows screeched at each other over a particular seed and ruffled the snow out of each other's feathers when things got physical. After the scuffle, they moved to separate sides of the park bench. The park was once again quiet and Harold threw another handful of seeds to the ground. Snow fell softly. He sighed.

The pathway through the park was empty, with the exception of the crows. White snow landed gently on the ground around them and blanketed the empty side of the bench, metal armrests coated in ice. The trees sagged with the weight of icicles and snow, and the once green landscape lay devoid of color. Somewhere past the trees and bushes, the sun was setting on city streets. Stores locked their doors and closed the shutters, people found shelter from the cold and prepared to wait for the sun to rise again. The rush of cars turned to a trickle of weary drivers with bloodshot eyes, commuting home or venturing out to experience the mediocre nightlife. None of this affected the park. No cars sped by, no solicitors shouted sales, and no one bothered the silence. The whole park held its breath, silently waiting for spring to arrive.

It had seemed like a good idea to get out of the apartment at the time. To get some fresh air, enjoy the quiet sunset hours of the city, and get away from the memories seeped into the walls of the small studio apartment. More importantly, Harold wouldn’t- no couldn’t- spend Christmas Eve alone on the couch. That was what losers did, and Harold didn't believe he was a loser yet, just in a worse spot than last year. That was ok, Harold figured, so long as he tried to do something about it.

Doing something about it meant buying birdseed at a gardening store and sitting on a bench in the middle of the park in single digit temperatures. He had slipped in a frozen patch of sidewalk near the entrance gates. His ass was sore and freezing and his fingers were numb with cold, but going home meant defeat, and Harold was not defeated or a loser. So he sat on his bench, threw out some seed and watched a small congregation of birds form at his feet. A pair had settled down nearby to peck at the feast, and before long Harold had six crows prancing around the bench. A loser could never assemble this many crows in single digit temperatures.

Harold sighed again, set the bag of seed beside him and rested his chin on his hands, defeated. One of the birds hopped up and pecked straight out of the bag.

He might not have been alone in his apartment, but he was alone in a park. And he still felt like a loser. His fiancée– no, ex-fiancée– definitely thought he was a loser. She had yelled it at him five or ten times before she left him sitting on his studio apartment's couch on Christmas Eve, alone. Harold was pretty sure the ring was nestled somewhere under that couch. He hadn’t checked where it rolled to after she threw it at him, but he was fairly certain it was under there.

The greedy crow pulled on the edge of the bag, tugging until it tipped over and seeds trickled between the wooden slats, forming a small pile underneath the bench. Crows swarmed the seed pile, and Harold let them. They would have gotten it eventually, so who was he to stop them. He became absorbed in the slowing stream of birdseed pattering to the ground.

Watching the birds peck furiously at the seed, Harold wondered if this was the moment that he should have some immense and meaningful revelation. Maybe, if he thought hard enough, he could find aspects of himself in the actions of the birds. Or perhaps he could imagine himself as the birds, released from the worries of men or love or marriage. His own black feathers would shield him from the cold as he took flight, abandoning the icy park ground for the frigid winter sky. He might fly up and up, passing over the lights of the city skyline. He might mistake them for stars. Oh, to soar higher than the stars, he would think, and abandon the shackles of this sodden soil.

But Harold never did have much of an imagination, and certainly didn’t identify with these birds. He found them a little silly, fighting over seeds and scrambling to stuff their beaks. Surely these city birds weren’t that hungry, were they? There were usually people all over the park and Harold was certain that a few had given the crows scraps of hotdogs or pretzels. Seeing the crows fight over these measly scraps exhausted Harold. They were all so furious for seed. Maybe if he had more of an interest in the mundane he would be able to find some quiet meaning in the action of the birds, and even in his own actions in feeding them. Instead, he watched the birds eat the seed he brought and wished he were back at home sitting on his couch.

“Spare a penny to save the planet?”

Harold jumped, and searched frantically for the source of the voice.

A young woman stood next to Harold, clutching a clipboard to her chest with gloved hands. She wore a bright green vest over her winter coat with a blue Planet Earth logo on the front. Her head was covered with a similarly green beanie, contrasted by her cheeks, red with cold. Harold stared at her for a moment, waiting for the spike of panic to subside.

“W…what?”

“Spare a penny? For the planet,” The stranger repeated, less enthusiastic than before.

“I… I’m sorry. I don’t think I have any pennies on me.”

“Oh. Well, I think we also take card,” She looked at her clipboard and flipped through the pages. Her gloved hands made it hard to get a grip on the fluttering paper. Her eyes grew more and more concerned as the seconds ticked by, unable to find whatever page she was looking for and also unable to quickly flip through without crumpling the sheets.

Harold contemplated the young woman. He hadn’t heard her walking up, but he saw behind her a steady set of footprints in the snow along the sidewalk. Harold had never been the most observant man. That was just another reason that his fiancée– no, dammit, ex–

“Ah!” The stranger exclaimed, pulling him back to reality. “We don’t take card. But we do take regular cash. It doesn’t have to just be pennies.”

“I’m sorry, I don't have any regular cash on me either.”

The stranger's enthusiasm turned sour. Her eyes glanced down at her clipboard. She took a breath as if to read part of the page out loud, but decided against it. Her expression became dejected, and she let the clipboard fall to her side. She turned her eyes towards Harold, then to the crows.

“Are those your birds?” She asked, after a moment.

“They’re no one's birds, I think. I just bought the bag.”

The woman nodded, and watched the crows hop around the pavement. Harold turned his own attention to them, pecking at the slowly disappearing pile of seed. Snow crunched beside him and he turned to see the woman sitting next to him. Her clipboard sat on her lap and he was able to read most of it from the corner of his eye. It was filled with a script on what to say to someone that might be interested in contributing “a penny to save the planet!”. The pages flapped in the cold winter breeze, and she did nothing to hold them down. Her attention was fixed on the crows, eyes growing distant. She put her chin on her hand and sighed, defeated.

“Are you… ok?” Harold asked, gently.

She glanced at him surprised, as if she had forgotten he was there, “Huh? Oh… um, yes, I guess I’m ok.”

Harold was not convinced, but figured he shouldn’t press the issue.

“Do you like crows?” He asked instead.

“No, not particularly,” she answered, and didn’t say more. The enthusiasm in her voice was entirely gone.

The two of them sat like this for longer than Harold would have expected. The dim evening light grew softer, and the streetlights slowly flickered to life. The crows pecked away at the diminishing pile of birdseed, and Harold picked the bag up to throw more. He tossed a couple small handfuls, then passed the half empty bag to the woman. She took it without a word, and tossed a few handfuls herself. Another crow landed to join the party.

“What’s your name?” The woman finally broke the silence.

“Harold.”

“Harold, do you ever feel like a massive, ridiculous loser?”

Harold sat quietly for a moment, then began to chuckle. The woman glared at him and he waved a hand apologetically.

“I’m sorry, I’m not laughing at you. It's just… well I was just thinking that I might be a massive, ridiculous loser.”

“Really?” she said, skeptically.

“Really. I would love to say I’m a dark, mysterious stranger spending Christmas Eve alone for dark and mysterious reasons, but I am not. Just a regular loser, alone for regular loser reasons.”

“Then I guess I’m asking for pennies for regular loser reasons, too.”

A lightness had entered her tone, but at the mention of her work, her gaze dropped and her eyes saddened once more.

“Let me guess, this job isn’t your favorite work,” Harold concluded, attention mostly focused on the birds.

“No Harold, it is not,” she said, also fixated on the birds, “but I can’t keep a job, and these people haven’t found that out yet, so here I am asking for change on Christmas Eve. I bet no one ever has any pennies on them any time of the year.”

“I can’t imagine that they do,” Harold said, trying to imagine the last time he had spare pennies on him.

She threw another handful, but kept hold of one of the individual seeds. She turned it around in her palm, examining the kernel.

“Do birds even like this stuff?” She asked.

Harold took the bag from her, and studied the seeds himself. The generic brand bag contained hundreds of little tan pellets, each no wider than the lead of a pencil. They lay end to end or side to side, with no discernible pattern to them. There couldn’t have been anymore than a quarter of the bag left.

“Of course they do,” Harold said, handing the bag back to the woman.

“Why do you say that?”

“Well, they wouldn’t eat it if they didn’t enjoy it, would they?”

She sighed, and whispered, barely audible.

“I certainly wouldn’t, but here I am.”

Silence lapsed between them, and that same sadness engulfed her once more. The woman threw the individual kernel she had been studying down to the ground, where Harold lost sight of it in the crowd of seeds. He barely knew the woman, but he hated seeing her so undeniably downtrodden.

“You must be doing it for a good cause, right?”

She looked up at Harold in confusion, popping out of her stupor and glanced down at her clipboard as the question registered. An intense string of emotions played out on her face as she scanned the page looking for something, and her eyes widened as if having some sort of revelation.

“I don't know.”

Harold was confused, “You… don’t know?”

She began to laugh quietly to herself, “I don’t know!” Two short barking laughs escaped her mouth and echoed throughout the park, “I’ve been asking people all damn day if they have a penny for the planet and I don’t even know what that means!”

She cackled at the pages and Harold joined her. It was a ridiculous idea really, when Harold thought about it. How could she be walking around all day and not get far enough in the script to know how she was actually helping the planet? If anything, it said more about her success asking for donations than anything else. It took him a moment to register that her laughter had turned to crying. His own laughter awkwardly petered out when he realized. The woman sat on the bench beside him, hunched over her knees, tears splattering the frozen ground.

“Shh... it’s ok…” Harold began awkwardly, but she cut him off.

“No, it's not ok! I’m wearing a stupid vest and this stupid beanie, sitting on a freezing bench in the middle of a stupid park on Christmas Eve, working a job that I know nothing about! I could be at home, sitting on the couch and watching TV or reading a book or going to bed.”

The woman handed him back his bag of seeds and made to stand, “I’m sorry to bother you, Harold. I know this isn’t how you wanted to spend your Christmas Eve.”

As she moved away Harold realized he didn’t want her to leave. He didn’t know what to say.

“What’s your name?” Harold found himself asking.

She stopped midway to standing up, and looked at him, tears still rolling down her cheeks.

“It’s Carrie.”

“Carrie, would you like to spend this Christmas Eve with me feeding the crows?”

She said nothing at first, frozen just in front of the park bench. After a moment, she sat down on the cold wood and held her hand out for the bag of seeds.