When crossing a bridge from old town to new, he was blocked by a flock of birds pecking away across the sidewalk.  Even the birds on the periphery most alert to him returned to plucking morsels.  He thought to cross the street instead, but traffic in both directions sped as though released from the talons of an insane red light.  He’d have to head back and cross at the light at the far end of the bridge.  But what of the woman coming from there?  She’ll just scatter them, he thought.  It felt to him disrespectful.  He walked back toward her, maybe to stop her, and only then noticed that she had been waving him to her.  He slowed as she approached.  She pointed him to get behind and follow her.  He did.  She walked slow and steady, and — instead of taking flight — the birds simply waddled off to the sides, opening them a path.  She stopped at the far end of the flock and pulled him to go on ahead of her.  Shoo, shoo, she said.  He felt himself propelled.  He just about flew to his mother waiting on him at the other light, but stopped to turn back and yell, They didn’t fly away!  His mother grabbed his hand because the light had turned green, and years later, in her notebooks, he read that he had the whole while crossing the street insisted on telling her that just because he had seen birds scatter in the past did not mean it was in the nature of birds to scatter.