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For David, it’s moths. And bugs with milky exoskeletons. And spiders. And snakes. Bears. Bats. Raccoons. Possums. Rats. Lizards. Wet dogs. Hairless cats.
But geese?
Near their cottage is a small pond. It’s quiet and lined with happy little trees one would only expect to find in a Bob Ross painting. It’s a lovely place for a walk in the evenings, or on a lazy Sunday morning. There are benches at regular intervals where elderly couples sit, heads together, remembering the early days of their love. Or children sit impatiently as their parents tear up slices of bread to feed to the ducks that glide effortlessly along the pond’s placid surface.
On this particular lazy Sunday morning, David and Patrick occupy one such bench, sharing a thermos of hot tea as they watch a cluster of ducks fight over the bread sprinkled into the water by a delighted toddler and her mother. Patrick is watching the ducks and David is watching Patrick and it’s perfect. Until it isn’t.
A discordant honk breaks the tranquility, and David sees his nigh unflappable husband turn suddenly...well, flappable.
Patrick tenses and David observes his nostrils flare and his eyes widen. Then Patrick is suddenly getting to his feet and rounding the bench, putting it between himself and...something.
David almost wants to laugh, but the raw panic in his husband’s face is no laughing matter. He manages to tear his eyes away from Patrick, turning to try and suss out the source of his sudden unease. The little girl and her mother have moved on along the path around the pond. The ducks have finished their mid-morning carbs fest and have waddled off somewhere to do...whatever ducks do when you’re not looking at them. And standing on the shore of the pond, looking for all the world like it owns the place, is a lone Canada Goose.
“Patrick?” David asks. He swivels in the bench to see Patrick has taken a few steps backward and is shaking his head.
“No. Nope. We need to go, David. Let’s go.”
David looks back at the goose. Is it... leering at him? It must be a trick of the morning light. David knew there was a reason he spent so much of his life sleeping past noon. Mornings can’t be trusted. The goose takes a step toward David and honks at him. Then it flaps its wings and David hears his husband whimper behind him.
“David!” he hisses. “David let’s go!”
This would be hilarious if Patrick weren’t obviously so disturbed by the goose’s presence. The goose may be noisy and it may have a menacing and flinty glint in its eye, but as far as David is concerned, as long as it doesn’t get its nasty poop on his shoes (black Converse high tops, because a David has a sartorial reputation to uphold, but he’ll be damned if he gets mud or duck muck on his Rick Owens), the goose is mostly harmless.
His husband appears to disagree.
David sighs and puts away his sketchbook and gathers up the thermos and hurries to catch up to Patrick, who has scuttled further up the trail and away from the goose. They make it all the way back to the trailhead before Patrick slows his pace. He turns, peering around David, as if he’s checking to make sure the goose hasn’t followed them.
“Care to elaborate?” David asks, gesturing with his thumb over his shoulder.
“Geese are vicious, David,” Patrick informs him seriously, taking David by the elbow and hustling him along, up the narrow lane that will lead them home. To David’s utter amusement, Patrick continues to check over his shoulder to ensure the goose isn’t skulking in the shrubbery. “I got chased by a goose when I was a kid. It was terrifying. I thought it was gonna peck my eyes out.”
David pouts sympathetically. He understands the trauma that can linger from an unpleasant animal encounter thanks to the great raccoon incident of 1992, when Alexis had attempted to adopt a raccoon, graciously deciding to let it live in David’s bathroom until she could convince their father to build it its own habitat in the children’s wing. To this day, David always checks the corners whenever he enters a bathroom.
His only solace is that the raccoon had seemed equally as shaken by the whole encounter.
He reaches out and takes his husband’s hand in his. “Just so you know,” David says, giving Patrick’s fingers a reaffirming squeeze, “You’re safe with me. If that goose wants to get to you, it’ll have to go through me first.”