On my walk to work, protected from the rain by a blue and white striped golf umbrella, there’s this little bridge crossing a 4 foot dam to separate sea water from fresh water at the office complex I work at. It’s an old 1800 textile factory converted to a modernized office park. It’s actually kind of cool, seabirds catching mini mackerels in tidal pools on one side, geese and ducks nesting with their turtle neighbors at the pond on the other.
As I was crossing the bridge I heard an asplosion of tiny duck freak-out, so I look to my right and see a huddle of a half a dozen duck chicks scamper towards the water. When I heard the first real quack, I turned and looked hard left, almost behind me now, theres another real QUACK and this mother fucking duck is in mid-flight, destination my face. I let out this instinctive cartoony “Aaah!” and simply adjusted the angle of my wrist so that my view of the duck was obscured by the umbrella. What followed can only be described as a instantaneous combination of a loud PIFFT, a weird shadowy imprint, and 15 pounds of force on my arm.
I peeked over the top of my umbrella and kept walking, but this bastard is still pissed off and now hes also fucking baffled. I think he took the collision pretty hard. He’s walking right next to me all wings open and hissing at me and shit, but thankfully there a chain link fence between us now. Every time he takes I flight, I bomp my umbrella down a notch so he knows what hell get. Im all “You want another beak full of bumbershoot, bitch? That shit can be ARRANGED.” He followed me for a long time, but eventually he ran out of room and had to stand down. Damn, right.
The Whimsical MetaCognitionist Chronicles 