The Pigeon Man

Said (51) from Agadir

Said is sitting there. Bread in his hand. With two fingers he plucks off a piece. He grinds the dry pastry between his fingers. He lets the small pieces slowly crumble onto the street. The greedy pigeons pounce on them. They peck away the best pieces from each other. Said is the pigeon man.

He cannot answer the question why he sits on the pavement and watches the pigeons in their greed and envy. Neither to himself, nor when someone else asks him. One day he started doing it. Then he stuck with it.

Said likes the pigeons. When he sits on the cold street and watches their quarrelling and clamouring, he will not feel alone. He has enough bread. He has enough time. He does not have a job.

Every day he leaves the house. Because he cannot stand it inside, he says. His flat is located in the north, in Molenbeek, but it has little in common with the apartments around. Just as little as Said has in common with the residents there.

Said is divorced. He never sees his children. He is from Morocco, but that is no longer his home. The streets of Brussels are. Here, he is not alone. Here, he is surrounded by pigeons pecking at his breadcrumbs. He knows it looks like an absurd scene. He does not care.

Every day he looks for another spot in the city where he settles down and scatters his bread. He likes the city centre. It is dirty, but not too dirty. The places he chooses are almost always in the back alleys. Once he sat down near the De Brouckère metro station. He did not like that, there were too many people around him. Said only likes the bustle of the pigeons.

Said lives in the north of Brussels. He usually does not have money for a metro card. When it is winter and the winter brings rain that lasts for days, Said still takes the metro. You can climb over the automatic barriers. It does not take any effort. You are rarely checked. And if he does get checked, it does not matter. Said has no money. All he has is bread.

In the summer months, Said often walks into town. When it is dark, Molenbeek is dangerous. But Said is not afraid. Nobody will hurt him because he does not do anything. For most people, Said is invisible.

Nevertheless, Said does not like to stay near his flat. His flat is not really a flat, just a small dark room. He has a few pieces of furniture in it. He has to share the bathroom with the other residents of the house. It is always dirty. Said does not like it.

Said knows that many people think he is homeless. He is not homeless, he likes to stress that.

He does not care what people think. He just wants to be left alone.

When he sits on the street, the breadcrumbs between his fingers and the pigeons flocking around him, Said is happy.