Nobody liked the smell of the man’s pipe. Not even his family liked it, (his son said it smelled like fried dog crap wrapped in burning hair. When the man asked his son how he would know what fried dog crap wrapped in burning hair smelled like; his son simply replied, “I just know, dad.”) He was a fifty seven year old man, and the only thing he liked any more was his pipe. He nicknamed the pipe ‘Cubbie Blue’. The man with the pipe had nowhere to take his pipe. Everywhere he went (supermarket, house, car, hotel, restaurant, street) somebody yelled, “Hey, get that stinkin’ pipe out of here! I don’t want to smell that crap!” or “Smokers are jokers!” or even “Don’t you know? Tobacco is wacko!”

But, one day as he scurried away from a restaurant after being kicked out; he stumbled into the park and found a wooden bench. The man couldn’t believe this, but carved onto the bench was a pipe. A tobacco pipe just like his own. It was a miracle. The man sat down and lit up his pipe. Oh, how he loved the taste of vanilla tobacco. He loved it so much!

As the man sat there, puffing away, a seagull flew and landed in front of him on the grass. The white bird looked at him, (and the man could have sworn that the seagull’s nose was trying to sniff. Like the seagull enjoyed the smell.) The seagull squawked, “HAWK! HAAWWWKK!”

“I bet you want some food, don’t you?” the man asked, and smiled.

As if to answer yes, the seagull eked, “HAWWKK!”

“Well, I think I may have something here for you,” said the man with the pipe. He reached into his coat pocket and came back out with a big piece of corn bread wrapped in a napkin. “I took this from home before I left. You never know when you just might need a snack, but you can have it…I’m full.”

The man picked off a small piece and tossed it in the air. The seagull caught it swiftly in his open beak and ate it quickly.

“Wow, you sure must be hungry.”

Then, seconds later, ten more seagulls swooped down from above the trees and on the grass next to the man with the pipe. They all squawked hungrily, “HAAAWK! HAWWWK! HAWK! HAAAAAAAAWWWWWKKKKK!”

“Jeez, Louis, you all must be starving!” the man with the pipe exclaimed. He began to pick off pieces of the corn bread and feed it to the seagulls. Five minutes later, the man with the pipe was out of corn bread; the seagulls had eaten it all.

“HAWWK! HAWKK! HAAAWWWKKK!”

The man with the pipe shrugged his shoulders and said, “I don’t have any more. You guys ate it all.” But the squawks wouldn’t stop. Finally the man threw his hands up and said, “Fine! I’ll go buy a loaf of bread!”

The man lit Cubbie Blue again and stood up. He made his way toward a small seven eleven type of joint. The man heard a squawking from above and looked up. The man couldn’t believe what he was seeing; at least ten seagulls were flying directly twenty feet above him, and none of them were pooping on the man either!

Five minutes later the man entered the store. The seagulls flew in circles around the roof.

“Hey!”

The man with the pipe turned to see a man in his mid-twenties with an apron. It was obvious he worked here. There was a white name tag on his shirt that said; LLOYD.

“What?” asked the man with the pipe.

“You can’t smoke that in here.”

“Why not? I can see two people in here right now that are smoking cigarettes.”

“Yeah, but they don’t stink like shit. Now, get out!”

“No,” whispered the man softly.

“What was that?” Lloyd asked.

“I said no!”

Lloyd grabbed the man with the pipe’s collar. “Alright, old man, you listen here. Get out of my store or I’ll--”

“HAAAAWKK! HAWKK! HAAWKK! HAWWWWWKKKK!”

“What the hell is that?” Lloyd looked up to the front of the store. All of a sudden a bunch of seagulls were at the big picture window. They were pecking at the glass with their beaks.

“Hey, get the hell away from tha--”

The picture window shattered to a million pieces as the seagulls flew in. They swooped down on Lloyd and tackled him to the floor. Seagulls covered his whole body, but you could hear squishing noises as the birds pecked at his skin. You could also hear screaming.

All of the consumers in the store dashed out the broken window and to their cars.

Then, the screams stopped and the seagulls flew off of him. What was left of Lloyd was only gore, blood, little patches of skin, and bones, (his eyeballs were missing and the eye sockets were picked clean.)

“Holy shit,” the man with the pipe muttered. He quickly made picked up four loafs of bread and ran out of the store. The seagulls flew above him the whole time.

The man with the pipe went back to the bench and fed all of the bread to the seagulls. Then, he started his walk home. The seagulls flew all around him. When he got home the seagulls stayed on the roof. The man went to the dinner table, where his son and wife were sitting. They didn’t wait for him for dinner; they were each halfway done with their spaghetti dishes.

“Hey,” the man said, and sat down. His plate was already in front of him.

“Where the hell have you been?” the man’s wife snapped.

“I was in the park, smoking Cubbie Blue.”

“Oh, your God-forsaken pipe! That thing is going to kill you one day!”

“Jesus, Mary, I’m almost sixty years old. Who cares if I get lung cancer? I’ll be dead and rotten before I do anyway.”

“Oh, there you go with your smart ass mouth again…”

The man tried to block out the bitching of his wife, and actually succeeded. Then his wife yelled in a piercing scream, “ARE YOU EVEN LISTENING TO ME?! I’M TALKING TO YOU!”

Screw this, the man thought. He reached in his pocket and brought out Cubbie Blue.

“OH, DON’T YOU EVEN DARE! I MEAN IT!”

The man lit up his pipe.

“GODDAMNIT! THAT’S IT!”

The man’s wife jumped to her feet and hobbled toward him. She had a killing look on her face. She reached her hands out to the man’s pipe, but stopped when she heard a squawking noise. She looked at the fire place and saw thousands of seagulls flying through.

“HAAWWWK! HAAWWWKK! HAWWK! HAWWWWKKKK!”

“What the--?”

The seagulls pounced on the man’s wife. They began pecking on her flesh. Within seconds nothing was left of her except bones.

The son looked at this in amazement and horror. “Holy shit, dad.”

The man turned to his son and said, “Don’t be cussing in front of me, boy!”

“Dad…?”

“For now on I’m gonna be smoking when I want to and where I want to, got it?”

“Yeah, sure, but…what’s…uhhh…oh my God…mom’s dead…”

“You’re damn right she’s dead. And if you don’t stop bitching to me about Cubbie Blue, the seagulls are gonna have some desert. Got it?”

“Uhh….uhhh…yeah, sure…whatever you want, dad.”

The son ran to his room.

The man lit up Cubbie Blue again. The seagulls squawked in front of him. They loved that smell. The man with the pipe smiled.