Devil Chicken

Brady turned their head towards the sound of rustling. Their eyes scanned the edges of the reeds and cattails for a moment before a plain brown mallard shook itself from the dried out stalks. Brady’s shoulders, which had been inching closer to their ears out of hopeful anticipation, relaxed back down at the sight of the common duck. Taking offense to the realization it was being watched or, possibly, the disappoint on the face of its voyeur, the mallard turned and swam away quacking loudly. Brady considered the similarity between its call and a child with a kazoo for a moment before bringing the binoculars to their eyes. They focused the sight on a gaggle of waterfowl toward the center of the lake. Not finding the loon they had seen the previous week they dropped the binoculars down on the grass next to them.

Brady jerked their neck awkwardly in either direction to check that the ground behind them was free of any poop. The quick glance proved they were in the clear. Flopping back they took a deep breath in through their nose. The heavy scent of rotting leaves mixed with the sharp resin of a nearby cedar hung in the damp air. The quaking aspens devoid of their leaves stood in silence around Brady. A half-dozen chickadees flitted between the trees calling to one another, a never ending game of Marco-Polo. Chk-a-dee-dee-dee. Chk-a-dee-dee-dee. Eventually their eyes lost focus on the barren branches and they let their body sink a little deeper into the chilly, wet earth.

The breeze finally managed to push the massive, gray blanket of cloud away from the sun. The sudden rays blinded Brady at once and they shot up. It took a minute for them to blink the splintered stars out of their eyes. Their annoyance slipped away at the sight of the jeweled surface of the water. Emerald Lake indeed, thought Brady. After two months of almost nothing but gray clouds hanging all the way down to the tips of the city’s trees it was easy to forget why exactly the lake was given such a name. There was a sign near the entrance of the park, which Brady had read during one of their first times here, that explained the color was due to a water weed which thrived in the glacial lake. It also made an excellent stopping point for all the water fowl during their winter migration.

Not long after the sun showed its face did the local bald eagle take flight from a red cypress on the opposite side of the lake to spread its wings in the rare sunshine. Brady took a minute to take it all in and decided to end their outing on a good note. They groaned as their knees crackled back to standing. They stretched their back from side to side and with a single motion scooped up the binoculars and little black notebook where they logged the birds they saw. One more glance back at the lake and they turned away to start walking back to their apartment.

Brady walked for a quarter of a mile when a lone coot caught their eye. It was scuttling about a muddy bank surrounded by apricot colored willow trees. Brady realized the charcoal bird was pecking at something in the mud. Thinking it might be a fish they got a little closer to watch it eat its lunch. At a closer vantage point Brady watched as the coot’s short bone, white beak struck down again and again. After having no success it maneuvered its too large, scaly chicken-feet around to the other side at whatever it was after. Brady, confused at why this bird was having such a difficult time eating a fish trapped in the mud, hopped down off of the walking path. The coot took a step back at Brady’s approach but did not yet escape into the safety of the water. Seeing what the bird had been after, Brady knelt down and scraped some of the mud away with their fingers. The coot watched intently, its head cocked one way and then the other, keeping one red eye always on Brady. After moving some mud aside they saw a bit of metal sticking out of the mud and dug a little father. Schloop! Brady looked at the dirty rectangle about the size of a small mint box now in their hands. They wiped off some of the dirt and turned it around in their hands. Their eyebrows furrowed in concentration they extended their arms out trying to catch a ray of sunlight on their mystery item.

“Owww! Fuck!” The coot, which had just bit Brady’s outstretched hand, jumped back and made two small circles before facing them once again. Focus returned to the coot, Brady remembered how creepy the birds were out of water. Scaly, gray-white feet unnaturally large for their chubby football shaped bodies topped with needle-like obsidian talons. Blood red eyes, for heavens sake! Brady looked down at their bleeding knuckle on their left middle finger. “Fuck you!” Brady yelled at the bird holding up the damaged finger. “You stupid… stupid…devil chicken!” The coot simply stared back, unfazed.

Brady turned on their heel, sliding slightly in the slippery muck and stepped back onto the walking path. Now definitively out of reach of the coot they used their shirt to wipe away the rest of the mud. After a few minutes of work they uncovered what looked like, to them, an expensive miniature external hard drive. It had a mostly flat surface with gold-metal plating. The sides were about a centimeter deep and on one short end two small lights protruded the surface. Despite being submerged in cold mud one was still flickering red. Brady looked at the small machine for another minute.

“Hmm, must be some broken remote or something,” they mumbled to themself before crossing the path to a garbage can. They tossed it into the bin and began striding across the soggy grass.

BOOM!

Brady slowly peeled their face away from the ground. They spat grass and grainy mud from their mouth, hoping it was only grass and mud considering all the birds walking across the field. Their black notebook laid flat on its spine a few feet away in front of Brady pages blowing open, a few of them with scorch marks. What the…? Brady began thinking but was cut off by a hand on their shoulder. They looked up into the face of a woman in her 60s. They blinked a few times taking in the stranger who was now saying something Brady couldn’t hear. Oversized hat with the neck flap, khaki hiking pants with too many zippers, binoculars. Definitely a birder. Brady tried to focus on her mouth, to force the words into comprehension with their eyes, since the only noise currently audible was a loud ringing. Brady shook their head, attempting to communicate their confusion. The woman looked up towards the road. Brady followed her gaze and saw blue and red flashing lights in the distance. The stench of burning plastic was suddenly burning their nostrils. They slowly sat up and turned their head in the direction of the lake. The trashcan they had just been walking away from was a smoking mess, melted into what someone could almost pass off as an artisan glass sculpture. There were many green and pink plastic bags strewn about the grass. The next smell that came their way confirmed the bags were the very same they see so often with dog owners. They felt a hand once again on their shoulder. They turned expecting to see the birder but was instead looking at a paramedic.

Later that evening…

“We’re going to send you home with some medication to help with any pain and one called bacitracin which is to help heal your burns. Your hearing will come back fully in a day or two. In the mean time take it easy. Do you have any questions?”

“Nope. Thanks.” Brady said distracted by the events that landed them in the E.R. answering these questions to begin with.

“Great. A nurse will be in shortly with your discharge papers.” The doctor turned around and walked through the pale blue curtain without another word.

Brady turned their attention back to the TV in the corner of the room.

This afternoon a garbage can exploded near the community center located on the east side of Emerald Lake. ECPD searched the area and were able to locate what caused the explosion. In the debris police found remains of what has been confirmed as a military grade micro-bomb. They are typically used during raids to stun targets before military personnel enter a building. How the $20,000 military equipment ended up at Emerald Lake is still under investigation. Only one person was caught in the explosion and was taken to Lakeview Hospital. More details on this story are still coming in. We’ll be back after a short break. Stay with us.

We’re back with the evening news on KEOW 5. I’m Shelly Wong here with Winston Michaels reporting on the explosion that happened early today at Emerald Lake. We just received confirmation that the individual is in stable condition and should be discharged shortly. I am happy to say they are one lucky duck.

Click!

Brady rolled their eyes, “More like cursed by a coot.”