Viaduct

There's this angry duck — white feathers, thick black eyebrows over its eyes — that waddles out of the river and down the street, stumping forward on little orange feet with its head down, muttering to itself. I'm not sure where it's going, or if it's going anywhere, but I'm holding on to it with both hands, arms outstretched, digging my fingers into its feathers as it drags me on my belly across asphalt and gravel and grass. I don't have to hold on to it — nobody told me to hold on to it — I might be making a fool of myself by holding on to it. Seems likely.

I tighten my grip. I'm getting tired, and scraped up, and my face feels hot. People are probably staring. I can feel the warm football meat of it moving under my hands, stretching and shifting in weird ways beneath its feathers with every ornery, bull-headed step it takes. It nips at the passersby, quacks at babies.

I keep holding on. I keep holding on because it might, at some point, fly, and if I keep holding on it might take me up with it.