I drive up to the
roof of the parking structure. It's a Monday and finally a nice day in
March. We've had a horrible winter and I want to enjoy as much of the outdoors
as I can. Even if it's only as I walk into the office building in the
morning and out in the evening.
But I am greeted by
beady eyes. Black. Soulless. The small head pivots as I drive
by the median in the middle of the parking lot: it’s new perch. It’s watching me.
I watch back as I
gather my bags from the safety of my car.
Keeping it’s gaze, I slide out of my vehicle. The connection is broken as I walk around my
car. It’s not that far to the glass door
of the stairwell.
I walk out into the
open of the rooftop parking. Making a
break for the stairs. But I don’t
run. What if it gets spooked? What if it flies at me, beating those gray
wings the pointed black beak aiming for my face?
Don’t geese attack
people? The thought pounds in my head.
But we just
stare. I reach the door and safety. The stairwell is enclosed by glass
paneling. I won’t see open air until I’m
down a level on the ground ready to cross the street to my office
building. And the goose won’t see
me. As long as he doesn’t move. And he doesn’t.
Monday Evening
It has been another
day at work, and I forgot about the staring contest from the morning until I
step outside again.
Surely he’s not
still there. Surely.
I am sure when I am
inside the glass of the stairwell on the roof.
No goose.
Driving to the gym,
which is in another office building in the corporate park where I work, I
forget again.
I decide to go for a
jog outside today. It’s still beautiful
outside and after how cold it’s been, I’m longing to be outside.
I’ve never run the
trails that connect the handful of offices.
Or half-run / half-walk as I actually do. It’s intervals. And I get tired.
I’m walking around
the lake easing into a jog as I approach a downward slope. Okay, maybe I do most of my running
downhill. And I see the sign. Caution Geese Nesting. With a silhouette of a
goose. In case I had never seen one.
Wouldn’t that have
been nice to know eight hours ago.
