No Friend of Mine

Choose your friends wisely

"You got enough money for crow food, though, don't ya?" Gillian knocked the old man's hat off his head. "Huh? Ya feed the birds, but ya got nothin for Smitty?"

The old man stumbled a little from the blow, even though the was very little force behind it. He looked to be all bones and leather old skin, ready to fall over in a strong wind. He looked around his yard, at the windblown piles of peanut shells from the nuts he put out for bird food. His voice was a watery warble. "Nuts don't cost much, and they get hungry, you know? They're t'only friends I got now, since..."

Gillian looked at the old man in disgust. "Smitty knows how to be a friend! You're the only idjit in this whole valley don't wanna call him your friend. Then he makes me come out here to have this little face to face!"

The old man turned and walked toward a cluster of garbage cans. As he reached into one of them, Gillian lunged forward and grabbed him by the shoulder. "Hey hey hey! Whaddya tryin', don't get cute, you old rummy!"

The man shook Gillian's arm away with surprising strength and held a hand up in front of his face. He was holding a fistful of peanuts, and his face was twisted in surprising rage. "I do not need Smitty as friend!" he shouted in Gillian's face in his strange Russian accent. "You have friends, they do not help; my friends do help! And I ask them to help take you away from me. Now!"

He threw the peanuts at Gillians feet. Gillian looked down, comprehension dawning sickly in his eyes. The old man's friends were coming.

The last thing Gillian hear was the sound of wings. Crow's wings.

(Word Count:300)