Simon looks at the feathered chaos around them; the geese strutting and fighting, shooting their beaks like bullets at the mallards, picking at food dropped by park-goers. One goose has a hot dog bun clenched in his beak and tries to hiss at the other geese who are closing in. The bun is too big and he drops it to the ground where the rest of the geese peck it to pieces.

Simon steps toward a pair off to his right. The female snakes her neck out, draws it back, and shoots it out along the ground again, glaring at Simon with one eye. The gander stands tall, opening his beak and hissing at him, his wings drumming half bent against his chest.

“Holy shit!” T-Man jumps back. “They sound like cats!”

Simon steps away from the geese. He shakes his head.

“They’re too mean. Way too mean.”

“Come on, Simon. It’s just a bird, for Christ’s sake.”

Simon stamps his foot to loosen the goose shit lodged in the cracked sole of his boot. With his hands in his pockets he begins to stroll lightly in a small circle.

The geese part and sway a few feet in every direction he turns, a sea of gray feathers rolling and rolling. To the left a medium-sized goose shuffles through the collected shit and snaps its beak. He looks away and it bends it neck double and bites at the feathers in its wingpit.

Simon knows that for a moment it can’t see him with its wing raised over its head. Simon pauses and jumps with his hands out in front of him.

He falls short but the ground is so slicked with shit he slides into the goose. His hands close on the scaly feet and it jumps back in surprise.

Simon scrambles to his knees holding on to the goose’s feet with both hands.

It hisses and opens its wings, whipping its neck around in every direction like an unmanned fire hose. The other geese retreat nervously, calling their calls and stamping their cold webbed feet, forming a ring around Simon and the goose.

It hisses again. It flaps its wings, trying to fly away from Simon. The goose pumps the air and Simon feels the gusts in waves against his face, sees the great clenching of the goose’s breast underneath the mantle of feathers and skin.

His grip is tight and the legs feel thin, no thicker than broom handles. They are cold and the skin is aubergine, scaly like the skin of a dragon. Simon feels the tendons pulling and pulling as the goose tries to take off.

T-Man is shouting. “Kill him! Kill him!”

The other geese squawk and move back. Some turn and pop up, settling down in the wintery water where they paddle back and forth like sentries or nervous witnesses.

“Kill him. Grab his fuckin neck and kill him!”