She unwrapped her sandwich and fed it to the pigeons, just as she did every day. Sometimes she wondered why she bothered making them in the first place, when she knew that she wasn’t going to eat them. And then she remembered the birds. How they would come hopping towards her when she sat on the same old bench, the paint long gone and no one caring enough to give it a new coat, the splinters of greyed wood sticking to her clothes as they grabbed at any chance to be free of their prison.

She understood how they felt.

She had choices, she knew. She could change things. But if she did that, what would happen to the birds? If she resigned from the drudgery of the office, of filing and typing whatever the boss asked (told) her to, and found a different job, a new one that excited her and made her smile instead of making her weep when she finally returned home to her dark and tired flat, who would feed them? If she took up a night class or distance learning to get a degree so that she could do what she really wanted (medicine, or teaching, or something else, maybe), surely she would be too busy and too exhausted to make their longed for sandwiches let alone have the time to sit out in the park during lunch and feed the them.

Were these excuses?

Or was she happy where she was, doing what she was doing, living the life she claimed to despise?

She didn’t want to find out.