Watched

My name is Nigel Byrd, and I have a secret.

My troubles began sixteen years ago on a cold, December afternoon when a terrible, horrible prank was played on one of those unnaturally large and red-faced domestic ducks, the most aggressive one in fact, which held dominion over the pond in the park near my home. But it was not “really” a prank, what I did. I was immediately aware that it was not a prank, and that it was in fact of matter much darker, and I wished as I watched that I could take it back, but it was too late, wasn’t it? The ugly, mean bird had swallowed the bait.

So that you may get the gist of my meanness, I will confess the entire story. I was trying to feed bread to the smaller, seemingly more fragile wild ducks that day, but the red-faced devil was hogging it all, and not leaving a single bite for the poor mallards, so I had run all the way home in a fury, taken the Alka-Seltzer from the medicine cabinet, and hollered a blustery “nothing” to my mother’s astonished inquiry as I’d raced back out the door. Upon re-arrival at the pond the ducks had immediately and gleefully bee-lined back towards my shoreline in anticipation of more snacks, creating great V-s in their watery wakes; the ugly, red-faced duck in the lead as they beat towards me, his front lowered heavily into the water like the prow of a great battleship propelled forward by some equally great and naturally selected propulsion system. And, having won the race, that duck got the first hunk of bread I tossed, and the second, and in his greed he gobbled up the Alka-Seltzer just as he had the bread, launching me into my previously claimed state of discontent (which, though quickly growing, was not yet a horror). I mean, I was twelve years old! I hadn’t “truly” believed that a duck would “really” eat an Alka-Seltzer! Just as I hadn’t “really” believed one tablet would kill the greedy bastard! That was just one of those urban legends, wasn’t it?

But the next day told the tale. The big duck was laid over in the shoreline shallows, it’s orange feet, blackened and curled now, raised heavenward. Between them had grown a horrid looking hole in its gut, the fault of my foolish innocence. And believe it when I say I had wasted no time running away! Away from the awful crime scene! Away from its bobbing victim! And more importantly, away from any witnesses who might deduce my guilt!

But there had been no witnesses, had there? I had laid the day away in my darkened room, awaiting a dreaded knock which never came. No one had seen. No one knew what I had done. Like magic I was free, safe from accountability for my murder!

And so, feeling some better, the next day I’d returned to the scene of my crime, as any criminal will do, carrying a bag of bread in hand. But the carcass was gone. Whether it had sunk, floated off, or was carried away I knew not. Only that it was gone, offering me great relief. But something strange happened then. The other ducks would not come for my bread, stopping midway across the pond instead to float there as still as death, looking at me through wide and obviously mistrustful side-eyes.

They knew, didn’t they? The ducks knew! But how could a creature so stupid know that I was the cause of their friends’ demise? But they did! At least they seemed to! What other explanation was there for their strange reluctance to come forward for a rare treat?

Unnerved by the floating ducks I threw the rest of my bread into the water and started for home. The stupid ducks might know, but what of it? Who could they tell? Who would they tell? Would they line up duckling-like and march into the sheriff’s office? I actually managed a chuckle at the thought of it. And the further from the pond I got, the better I began to feel. They could tell no one their secret, could they? They were stupid ducks, and a duck cannot give away a crime, no matter its intelligence level. And who would believe a duck anyway, even if it could tell? No one, that’s who!

And so I was feeling much better as I ambled down the sidewalk past the Burkes’ home, rattling a stick along their picket fence when, on the fence’s corner-post I noticed a mockingbird. Strangely, the noise from my stick did not seem to affect this calmly waiting bird which, watching me come seemed completely non-plussed at my approach. Curious, I wandered closer to it, and closer yet, wondering how close it would let me come before it flew away. And as I stepped right up beside it, somewhat awed at its bravery, it suddenly flustered, spatting its wings at me! I reflectively ducked away from it, but too late, as the thing had already grabbed a parcel of hair from my head in it’s hammer-like beak and made off with it, leaving me a bare patch and a welp in exchange for it…

And they follow me still, the birds do, watching me even these eighteen years later. I see them through the window there on the lawn; waiting, watching. Once, against my will, my mother forced me out there, swearing I would be fine. But, of course she was wrong. And of course I was right. She was watching me from my window when they attacked! What in my estimation had appeared to me to be a hawk had swooped down on me. Filled with a screaming rage it had clawed at me as I ran, though mother cruelly played it off afterward as it having been nothing but a finch and not a hawk, but I knew better, and type of bird be damned! It was a bird, and it had attacked, just as I‘d known it would, diverting it’s kamikaze dive away from me only to crash heavily into the window from which Mother was watching, so hard in fact that it knocked itself unconscious, producing a clatter such as I’d never heard from the surrounding trees and shrubbery as thousands of shrill voices joined in the angered cry Against me, ”The Killer of Birds!”

The doctor’s have been unable to help me, though their medications do keep me calmer. Mother still does not know what happened to her child at the park that day, and can only surmise some dark and twisted thing, which is the absolute truth of the matter.

With the murder of that innocent duck life my life was equally ended, reduced to psychosomatic fear and withdrawal from the outside world and it’s flying avengers.

And so I no longer venture out, choosing to sit by my window, watching them watch me watch them, forever.