Edited by Stuti Sharma
Dawn breaks over Dublin, and I amble down O’Connell Bridge, an Americano in one hand and a warm brown paper bag in the other. My indigo scarf flutters like a little banner behind me, and the cold morning breeze tickles my cheeks before freezing them solid.
I walk, smug and self-satisfied after pulling an all-nighter, writing a 3000-word paper on Celtic folklore that I am quite certain no one apart from my professor will ever read. But at the moment, I am determined to become an accomplished Celtic scholar. I have found my calling, I tell myself.
The warm bag in my hand exudes a delicious sugary blueberry scent, and I can’t wait to tuck in. I plot my trajectory, my coffee and muffin one, not my career one.
I decide to eat my breakfast by the bridge, settling myself into one of the wrought iron benches by the beautiful River Liffey.
The sky turns from grey to blue and then to a gentle pink, with lashes of egg-yolk yellow filling in the gaps between the clouds. My mellow heart softens like the centre of my blueberry muffin, and I feel all the lines in my head relax.
That’s when I hear it.
The familiar squawk.
I see his talons first –sharp, hooked and menacing. They coil around barbed wire menacingly, daring me to come closer.
I do not, even, consider it.
“Eeeeiyaoi!” he squeaks, grating against my shivering nerves. I resist the urge to squeal and try to act cool, and nonchalant.
It doesn’t work, I whimper.
The gull advances, slowly, at first, then all at once, he pushes himself off the metallic railing and hurls his body through the crisp November air.
The sky seems to darken, clear blue shrouds itself with a cloudy pallor, I freeze, my hands frosty, my mind frigid.
He careens through the air and swoops by my head, missing my forehead by a hair’s breadth. I almost vomit with relief.
Not my hottest moment.
I consider loosening my muscles, I notice my knuckles, white and tight against a crumpled brown paper bag.
It’s just a seagull! I remind myself, no biggie.
They are all over the place, plus they like humans, They are used to them. They’re like desi pigeons, my psuedo calm inner monologue continues; except for the fact that they’re white, three times their size, and with a lot more guts than our puny little kabootars.
I try to shake it off.
I laugh at my own paranoia, pretend it was all a lark.I’m a smooth sailing, seagull befriending, coffee-drinking Dubliner.
Right?
I go back to my post on the windy bench and take a sip of my coffee. It’s lukewarm and slightly stale now, but I did pay four euros for it, so I take another sip and pretend to enjoy it.
I pull the blueberry muffin out of the brown bag and let out a long, long breath
Its gooey goodness tempts me, and I bring it closer to my lips, anticipating the tarty explosion of blueberry jam as it melts into freshly backed dough, condensing and coalescing into a three thousand calorie dollop of heaven.
SHCOOP!
“Huh?” my taste buds seem to say, as they get a massive bite of air instead of blueberries.
The blade-like whir of wings, the sharp sting of a freshly manicured talon, and an empty, muffinless hand.
I look up at the receding gull, my muffin gripped between his jaws, he seems to giggle back at me as he soars over the Ha’penny Bridge and slowly out of view.