Then she saw the old man.
He was sitting on a plastic crate outside the mosque, feeding pigeons from a ripped bag of stale crusts. He moved with a slow, deliberate grace, as if each crumb was a consecration. Aisling stopped. She didn't know why. Maybe it was the way he didn't shoo the birds away, but welcomed the mess of them—the flapping, the cooing, the shit on his trousers. 4 seasons dublin
She returned to the old man on Clanbrassil Street. He was still there, on his crate, though now the pigeons were fewer. His name, she learned, was Mr. Singh. He had come from Punjab forty years ago, had run a corner shop, buried a wife, outlived two sons. Then she saw the old man